


Memento Mori

by ac1d6urn (Acid)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, Angst, BDSM, Bisexual Harry Potter, Bondage, Canon Divergence - Battle of Hogwarts, Character Death, Community: hp_crossgenfest, Cross-Generation Relationship, Dystopia, Enemies to Lovers, Evil Voldemort (Harry Potter), Fairy Tale Endings, First Time, Fluff and Angst, For certain odd values of fairy tale, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Library, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Library Sex, Light Bondage, M/M, Magical Bond, May/December Relationship, Memory Charms, Morally Ambiguous Character, Murder, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Snakes, Submission, Torture, War, magical slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-27 09:46:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15682923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acid/pseuds/ac1d6urn
Summary: After the Death Eaters win, Harry clings to life stripped of himself and terrified for the future, but determined to fight. Could an unlikely alliance help him defeat Voldemort?





	Memento Mori

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Antuhsa for the tireless work of beta-reading above and beyond the call of duty and for the moral support and to Sinick for pointing and laughing as this '15,000 words, max' story grew past 40,000. Yep, she told me so. This is for everyone presently clothed or fearless. As per title, remember that you have to die. Live life to the fullest anyway.
> 
>  **Tags/Tag Clarification:** War, murder, one semi-graphic torture scene. Character deaths, not Snape or Harry. Magical slavery, not Snape or Harry. Suggestions of an off-screen rape, also not Snape or Harry. Angst. Hurt/Comfort. BDSM. Nudity. Fear. Maybe love. Rampant prompt deviation. Canon-compliant up to most of Book 7. Voldemort wins. Ambiguously canon Snape. Magical bonds. Memory charms. Gryffindors are too stubborn to be brainwashed for good. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. Biased judiciary, folks, don't do this at home. Dystopia, flangst and fairytale endings. For certain odd values of fairytale.
> 
>  **Prompt:** Lucius/Hermione, Bellatrix/Ginny, Snape/Harry. During the war, Naked and Afraid takes on a whole new meaning.

# Memento Mori

_“We have learned to see the world in gasps.”  
_ _\- Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale_

*

"Hermione, eat."

Hermione nodded and took the last of the crisps in Harry's hand. Her stare turned resolute as she looked down at her wallet. Their Muggle money had long been spent. She never used the remaining galleons - it was too risky, anyone could see them - but she took the wallet out every morning to glimpse that one photograph: the Weasley family on vacation, with Ron in clear view, grinning.

Whatever gave them strength these days couldn't be a bad thing. But Harry couldn't bear to see her staring blankly at that one photo of Ron, so instead, he went through his meagre possessions: a stale pack of biscuits, a knut, his Invisibility Cloak.

It's been months, maybe more since Lucius' hex took Ron down, since Bellatrix Lestrange cast the Killing Curse on Mrs Weasley, but it seemed like forever. Harry hadn't been there to see it all, just the beginning of the end: right until the Great Hall's massive doors had slammed shut as his vision swam. He had crawled through the entrance hall, over the house-elf bodies. The Invisibility Cloak clung to his blood-soaked shirt. The awful sight of the massacre haunted his nightmares still. And if that hadn't been enough, Hermione had relayed to him later how she had dragged Ginny away from the hall full of corpses, how they had found the teachers' passageway unlocked and escaped into the same entrance hall Harry had been in. How they had slipped away to Hogsmeade while the Death Eaters stormed the towers.

They had been on the run from Hogwarts by then, the three of them. Ginny and Hermione had to keep him from heading back to the battle. He'd heard the hexes, the shouting, the screams, and kept wondering how many had gone on a suicide mission to buy the rest time to escape. He didn't know, and that uncertainty ached deep in his chest, as deeply as only the horror of suspecting the worst can be.

Only now they had come to the end of their supplies. They hadn't seen a soul that learned their actual names or recognised their faces since that fateful night, too afraid to reveal themselves to anyone, Muggles or Wizards alike. They had tried to get lost in the city for weeks before, but even London wasn't safe. Not when the great Harry Potter... _oh sod it!_ Harry was a liability, and his friends would die because of him. Best they could do is to buy time or split up, but he couldn't voice that. Not when Ginny and Hermione kept on walking because he walked alongside them.

"Come," Ginny said. "It's getting cold, we have to keep moving."

They had kept their wands, though it was only a matter of time before they would have to get rid of them. The tracking charms of Voldemort's Ministry were too strong to risk the use of spells. Yet there was a sense of safety in the fragile twigs, the memory of better days. Harry thought of a younger Hermione, always so excited about magic, and huffed his regret at all her studying not being able to help them out of this mess. His lips were too cracked to form a proper scowl. Hermione had always been their best chance at survival but now she looked as lost as Harry.

"Drink this," Ginny, far stronger than either of her companions, prompted. Her cheery freckles were grey, the greasy hanks of her red hair were covered with mud. She sounded as numb as they all felt.

They all took turns carrying the water in a plastic bucket with a broken handle. It was half-full. The night's chill formed a thin sliver of ice around the edges as they huddled together to keep warm.

Dover must've been close by. Harry checked the stained scrap of Hermione's map with its network of roads they stayed away from. They had to get to the coast. The coast meant boats. Boats meant France, and France meant safety, away from Voldemort. No surveillance, no threat of the Ministry's Obliviators for Hermione, no threat of capture for Ginny. He had to get Ginny and Hermione out; it was too dangerous for them to stay. Harry planned to see them to safety and then, he'd go back. He'd return and figure out how to kill Voldemort, he'd mourn everything they'd lost after. That was the plan at least. Killing that monster came first. He had no other choice.

He couldn't run away from his duty. Someone had to take a stand. Someone had to stay behind and fight. He wouldn't let anyone drag him away from what he had to face, not anymore. Not Hermione, and not Ginny. Not even the ghost of Albus Dumbledore himself.

They almost made it, the three of them together, with their sad bucket of drinking water and their near-empty bag of supplies. Harry smelled the coastline and heard the seagulls overhead and for one second allowed himself to believe in a better world, but then the cracks of Apparation sounded all around them and a stunner hit him before he could grab his wand.

He fell, and his attacker tore the Invisibility Cloak out of his grasp before Harry could throw it over Ginny or Hermione, a bundle of weightless silk driven into the mud, the sight of it there stinging harder than their attacker's kick against his ribs.

*

Ginny awoke with a gasp, heavy iron weighted down her neck, the rusted hinge pinched a lock of her hair. A similar weight settled around her ankle. Her entire body hurt. She tried to move. No luck. It felt as though she was chained to something. No, to someone. Long hair strands tickled her shoulder. _Hermione?_

The room was dark, Hermione's frantic breath in her ear jolted her to full awareness. "Ginny?"

"Yeah." Frantic, she looked around. _Where's Harry? He wasn't at her side. Had they taken him? Was he dead?_

She lifted her hands to her neck, feeling around the rusty iron. It was grimy with someone else's blood. The metallic smell of it invaded her nostrils. It wasn't fresh and wasn't hers.

_What have they done to us? What will they do next?_

_First things first._ She looked around the room until her gaze rested over the pile of rags in the opposite corner of the cell. _Harry? Please be alive._ "Harry!"

"Shh," said Hermione. "You're asking for a Stunner. They're watching. He's alive, just out of it. I can see him breathing."

Ginny bit her lip. "Who are 'they'?"

Hermione shook her head. "No one I recognised. All masked."

There was a slight hope in that. If they were still masked, that meant the bastards were still afraid to be seen, to be remembered. And Ginny was determined as never before to remember every single face and every voice, count every hex cast in their direction. They'll get what's coming to them someday and damned if she didn't relish the thought. For mum, she thought desperately. For my family. I have to survive to see justice done.

There was no other way to go about it.

Despite everything, Harry was still with them, and that gave Ginny hope to keep going. No matter what.

*

Harry didn't know how long they stayed in that dank narrow cell. It must not have been autumn any longer, or even winter, but he had no way of telling otherwise in a windowless enclosure. He scratched the count of days on the wall with a pebble, but there were weeks here and there, dark and desperate, when he couldn't bring himself to get up from his corner. He held a precious scrap of fabric up and peered at it with naked eyes: the Invisibility Cloak's hem had torn as they pulled it away from him. It was the only thing he had left, small enough to overlook as his captors emptied his pockets, just long enough to tie around his wrist. From what he could still see in the sparse light coming from the corridor, the magic woven into the silk worked oddly, turning a thin strip of his skin invisible to expose the pulsing veins and the tendons beneath. Morbid as the idea was, the sight of his own flesh, unmistakably living, reminded Harry he was still alive.

Every morning they woke from the chill in the air. Every night he watched Ginny and Hermione huddled together as he stayed by his wall, unable to reach them. Their shirts were in tatters, Harry's and Hermione's ragged jeans still hanging heavy around their bony hips, Ginny's robe, a shroud around her body. Heavy iron weighted down his bruised ankle as it connected him to the wall and Ginny and Hermione to the opposite wall. Harry tried not to look below their stubborn stares. That much he could still do to afford them some dignity. They were all sharp elbows and knobby knees, anyway. Including him. Skinny as any runaway in autumn. Starved as all prisoners here. Hermione had a terrible cough these days, and Harry had spent the days dizzy and unsteady on his feet, hating the way the lack of food made him weak.

He grew used to the smell of three unbathed bodies in close quarters, but not to the stench of death that hung in the air from the cells nearby, heavy and ominous.

One day, the air of the dungeon was slightly less stuffy, with a chill growing. The footsteps coming down the staircase sounded like a countdown to something terrible. A breeze ruffled Harry's fringe. He stirred, and lifted his head toward the source of the commotion. The slot in the door locking the rest of the world out was open but it was not meal time. He looked up with a frown.

There were muffled words, whispers, and then, the shadows cast through the barred slot in the door had disappeared. Harry almost had hoped that they'd moved on. Almost. No such luck.

"Wait," someone called out. "We'll take the girls. Check their teeth first."

"Fuck," Hermione hissed under her breath, the first word she had spoken in days.

The door hinges screeched, an awful, ominous sound, as the door opened slowly, like the entrance to a tomb. Their tomb.

Someone masked, Harry couldn't see their face, yanked Ginny toward them, the chain rattled, falling free from the hook in the wall at the quick flash of an unlocking spell.

"The redhead, darling. We can gift the other. Lucius could use a morale boost, what with his demotion."

Harry recognised the hint of mania in the speaker's voice, as jarring as the screech of the door opening. Bellatrix Lestrange. He lunged, in memory of Sirius, of Mrs Weasley, of so many others. But mid-way, his focus shifted on what was most important, winning precious time. He wasn't even sure who he was trying to shield from Bellatrix, Ginny or Hermione, he just knew he had to touch them one last time before the worst happened. The chain from the wall allowed it and he grasped their hands, cold and strong, as they grasped him back.

"Harry," Ginny let out a frantic yell. "Harry!"

Hermione's hand squeezed his, with all the desperation of a dying soul. Or perhaps it was Harry who was the desperate and the dying. Their hands were yanked out of his grasp with a sharp tug. Harry caught the last glimpse of Ginny's red hair as the heavy door fell shut behind them. And then, with his companions taken from him, Harry was alone.

_*_

Harry pushed his head back against the wall of his cell. The rough stones pressed painfully against his skull. He looked down and then raised his head abruptly again, right against the solid brick wall. The sharp stab of pain made him awake and alert, just for a second. In that brilliant moment of perfect awareness, the Shrieking Shack seemed like a different lifetime.

_The room was dimly lit, but Harry could still see the edge of a table and a long-fingered white hand toying with the Elder Wand._

_Snape spoke, making Harry's heart lurch. Snape stood inches away from where Harry crouched, hidden._

_"... my Lord, their resistance is crumbling."_

_"With your help, Severus," Voldemort said, high and clear. "And your talent for battle tactics. Whatever they have up their sleeve won't make much of a difference now. We've almost won. Almost."_

_"Yes, my Lord. Your power is almost absolute." Snape strode past the gap and Harry drew back a little._

_"Severus?"_

_"Yes, my Lord?"_

_"When it's all over, I want you to stay at Hogwarts. I need you to watch over the next generation of my faithful servants and I trust no one else with this task. You have truly earned this honour."_

_"Thank you, my Lord. I will not fail you."_

_"See to it that you don't." Voldemort stood. Harry could see him now, the red eyes, the flattened, snake-like face. The pale skin gleaming in the gloom. "You know I don't take the news of failure lightly. Not from someone I trust." The long-fingered white hand closed around the Elder Wand. "I have one problem, Severus," said Voldemort softly._

_"My Lord?" said Snape._

_Voldemort raised the Elder Wand, holding it delicate and precise as a conductor's baton._

_"Harry Potter still lives. What must I do with him?"_

_In the silence, Harry thought he heard Voldemort's sibilant sigh lingering._

_"My - my lord?" said Snape blankly. "You have performed extraordinary magic with your new wand, you are winning this battle, the war. Hogwarts, the heart of the Wizarding world, is yours to command! What can one boy do against that?"_

_"Not much," said Voldemort. "I am extraordinary, yes, but the world has not seen me do extraordinary things just yet. I must show it the way. My wand sings of glory every night. It demands it."_

_Voldemort's tone was musing, calm. But Harry's scar throbbed. The pain built in his forehead and he could feel a controlled sense of pleasure building inside Voldemort._

_"I shall give it precisely what it wants. What do you suppose it wants most, Severus?"_

_Snape did not speak. Harry could not see his face. He wondered whether Snape had sniffed the veiled danger out. If he was trying to find the right words to steer his master to the least destructive path._

_"I have thought long and hard about this topic. Do you know why I have called you back from the battle?"_

_Snape's profile glowed in the dark of the room. His eyes were fixed upon Voldemort's face."No, my Lord, but I beg you, let me return. Let me earn glory in your name on the battlefield."_

_"Tsk. You sound like Rodolphus. Neither of you knows what's best for you. You need not earn my favour, Severus. You have been valuable. Irreplaceable. I do not wish you harmed, not when I still have a purpose for you." The glint of red in Voldemort's eyes made Harry as uneasy as if red was a river of blood. "I've decided. Potter will come to me. I know his weakness, his one great flaw. He will hate watching others struck down around him, knowing it is all his fault. He will want to stop it and he will come and he will bend to my will."_

_"My Lord, if he doesn't..."_

_"He will. It cannot be any other way, Severus. I have mastered this wand and I will master Potter at last."_

*

The hall they brought Harry into was full of faces as soulless as a Death Eater's mask. He couldn't see them well, because his glasses were long gone, cracked beneath his captor's boot.

Overhead sounded the horrible buzz of a snitch following him around. It was, without a doubt, Dumbledore's golden snitch, its wings restored, flying just out of reach.

"Behold," the Dark Lord announced, voice enhanced by Sonorus. "My greatest enemy!"

Harry reached for the snitch and stumbled, his bad foot folding under. He fell, and the snitch buzzed closer and closer, wings slicing sharply through the air by Harry's cheek, with the desperation of a bird, trying to find a way out of a cage. Harry shouted and tried to wave it away. The frantic wings slashed against his wrist, leaving an angry scratch, and another, and more.

Titters of laughter rang out through the hall. Desperate, Harry searched the crowd for the other captives, perhaps even Hermione or Ginny, but it appeared he was the solitary spectacle. A freak show.

"Shall we put him out of his misery?"

Harry braced himself for the worst.

"Tsk, even I am not that merciful," Voldemort's voice ruled over a crowd. "What Harry Potter deserves is to bow to my will. He will not die. He'll continue to exist, yes, but not to live. Instead, he will see me flourish and grow in power as he suffers. He will endure a long and painful existence and succumb to death in his own time, stripped of any meagre will to live he still holds. So let it be as I say. Hold him down!"

The sound of a spell spoken produced a magical leash unraveling through the air. A red and fiery ribbon snaked toward him like a serpent stalking its prey. It hissed with heat, with malicious energy. Harry squinted in horror: at the head gaped an angry maw of a leech. It approached, slithering closer and closer until it blinded him with its fire-hot shine. He recoiled, as he sensed and smelled the inevitable. Heavy desperation spread through him. Shivers ran through every inch of his skin. Terror weighted down his limbs. The grim finality of it approaching took all breath out of him.

"NOW!" Voldemort shouted, and the brand latched on with a leech's strength onto Harry's scar, searing hot, and Harry was not himself any longer but an endless scream.

He passed out at some point. He didn't remember. His head was splitting in two, an angry wound at the centre of his forehead the primary source of his agony.

A boot kicked his arm out, his wand hand flexing desperately, fingers twitching with pain.

"Look, my loyal subjects, behold my greatest enemy, defeated!" Voldemort bellowed, his voice cutting sharp into the edges of Harry's awareness, keeping him from passing out. "For years he and his persisted in denying my rightful role as your leader. For years he rebelled, trying to kill me in cold blood, to stir up others to his hopeless cause. But no more! Here's a new prophecy for you, Harry Potter," Voldemort proclaimed, and the blunt pressure of his boot descended onto Harry's wand hand, crushing his fingers with the brutal precision of a vice. "Never again will you catch the golden snitch. Never again will you lift a wand. Never again will you conspire against me. I've made sure of it."

Harry didn't pass out that time, determined not to give Voldemort the satisfaction. He breathed through the rolling waves of agony and kept still on the floor. He didn't feel any different, his body still hurt in exactly the same way. What had Voldemort's spell done to him?

"If anyone wishes to claim this filth, I _could_ be generous."

"I do," a voice sounded, somewhere to the left.

"Severus? Really?"

"The eyes are… not unpleasant to look at." Snape's voice sounded so disinterested, so hollow.

"On your head be it," Voldemort's voice echoed. "You lecherous fool."

"Thank you, my Lord. Thank you." Even Snape's voice was servient, as reverent as a prayer. How different he sounded from the stern instructor striding between the desks of a classroom. Speaking now, Snape never missed a chance to appeal to Voldemort's controlling nature. Was it on purpose, or did Voldemort demand constant groveling as his followers addressed him when they were actually allowed to do so?

"One more thing…"

"Yes, my Lord?"

"His fate shall be tied to yours. He runs, you die." A cackle sounded, echoed across the hall.

Snape's voice was calm. "Yes, my Lord."

"Because I am merciful, and do not wish to see my loyal servant undone by such an unfortunate circumstance, I have done you a favour by clipping his wings."

Harry's heart leapt in terror at the sound of that.

"Thank you. My Lord?" Snape still sounded nonchalant, the barest of curiosity in his voice.

"One day I will see you return and grovel to join the ranks of my faithful servants, Harry Potter. But it will be a long time until I'll let you crawl back, begging me to give your suffering a purpose." There was a pause, a dreadful, heavy pause. "In the meantime, someone must teach you your place."

Another incantation, and a cold and sharp spell lashed against Harry's forehead. The spell hit him again and Harry gasped. It felt like the heavy links of a chain thrust against his throbbing wound. Over and over.

"My Lord… please! Let him be coherent to fully comprehend your mercy."

The spell tightened like a band around Harry pounding forehead, then eased.

"As you wish, Severus. This is a civilised new world." The footsteps had stopped, and the sweep of the Dark Lord's cloak brushed by Harry's ear. "Take him away."

Afterwards, he was carried somewhere dark and draughty and spun into in a whirlwind of Apparation until he fell against something soft and solid, plain and painless.

*

The Shrieking Shack again.

_Harry could feel Voldemort as if he himself was in the large, pale body of the monster. Voldemort turned away, and there was an utmost sense of satisfaction in him, a sense of pride in his wand and his future abilities. He gestured with his wand at Snape as the man stood still before him. And then Voldemort swept from the room without a backward glance, and Snape's gaze followed him all along._

_Back in his own body, Harry opened his eyes. He was looking through the tiny crack between crate and wall, watching one black boot planted firmly on the floor._

_He could hear Snape breathing. Harry bit down on his knuckles in an effort not to breathe too loudly. What if Snape knew?_

_"Potter," Snape said calmly._

_"Harry," breathed Hermione right behind him, but Snape had already pointed his wand at the crate blocking the view. It lifted an inch into the air and drifted sideways._

_Harry lunged from under the Invisibility Cloak. He didn't know why or how he might kill Snape, but he knew he had to try. He didn't know what to feel as he shouted, spitting out the first spell that came to his mind and seeing Snape deflect it skillfully as if swatting a fly. Harry didn't care about dying any longer: there was the man he hated, whose widened black eyes found Harry and pinned him down as an insect. Harry raised his wand, but suddenly Snape seized the front of his robes and pulled him close._

_"One moment, Potter." he rasped. An angry whisper, unsuitable to Voldemort's trusted tactician pierced Harry's ears. "Look at me!"_

_And then, Harry's green eyes found Snape's black ones. The stare was mesmerising, like a dark pool of water still as the eye of a storm, silently dragging Harry inwards and dragging him down. And without hesitating, with reckless abandon, Harry allowed it to pull him in._

_He fell headlong into the sunlight. Into a nearly deserted playground with a single huge chimney splitting the distant skyline. A skinny boy watched two girls behind a clump of bushes. His black hair was overlong and his clothes so mismatched that it looked deliberate. His jeans were too short. His overly large coat would have fitted a grown man. His smock was something a woman would wear._

_Snape looked nine or ten years old. He was small, sallow and stringy. He watched two girls swinging in the playground with a look of an undisguised greed._

_"Lily, don't do it!" shrieked the elder._

_The younger had let go of the swing already. She launched herself to the sky with a blissful shout and soared, laughing all along. Harry had counted to three until she landed on the grey asphalt of the playground, light as a floating feather._

*

Harry was in a soft bed when he awoke again.

Someone's magic, tender and cautious, wrapped around his mangled hand. Harry tried clenching his hand into a fist, but the twisted fingers remained still. They were blessedly numb.

"Careful," the voice, Snape, warned him. "This will take time. I need to set the broken bones."

Harry opened his eyes. How did he come to be in this room, in this bed?

Reality felt like swimming underwater, slowed down and amplified tenfold. Sunlight stung. Sounds rattled.

Snape's hair hung low over his face as he worked on Harry's hand with delicate, calculated gestures, casting something painless and precise.

Harry drew a cautious breath. He remembered Ron, dying; he remembered being captured, carrying a bucket of water, holding onto his cloak. He remembered his cell and he remembered his foot swollen, numb from the iron shackle biting into his ankle.

Harry had been alone then. He was always alone.

He remembered Snape. As if anyone could forget Snape: the Potions classes, the snide remarks, the 'ten points from Gryffindor’. The 'Harry Potter, our newest celebrity'. That sadistic prick was the same he had ever been, but even that had been a welcome relief after the torture Harry had been through. The random flashes of memory brought on the images of Snape swooping down the corridors, taunting some poor student over their hex-grown teeth. "I see no difference."

And there was Snape in the Shrieking Shack, willingly sharing the memories of the past. "For _him?_ Expecto Patronum." Of Harry, raised like a pig for slaughter, to kill Voldemort. "I am counting upon you to remain in Lord Voldemort’s good books as long as possible," Dumbledore had told him. And so Snape did.

Was that the entire truth? Harry had no other choice but to trust that the young boy in the overlong coat hadn't grown up to be a monster. He had to trust that the Dark Mark didn't define all Snape was now, after his murder of Headmaster Dumbledore.

"Where are we?" Harry rasped against Snape's back turned toward him. His throat was sore, screamed raw. Snape was distractedly sorting through various phials on the workbench near the bed.

"Hogwarts."

So Voldemort had ordered Snape to keep his position at Hogwarts. It also explained the rush of Apparation here: only a Headmaster could Apparate into the castle.

The lancet window was cracked open and showed a glimpse of a blue sky. The breeze carried the smell of summer with it. _How long did they hold me in that horrible cell? So quiet. As if all the students are gone for the summer hols._ The thought was so ordinary, so normal, as if no Death Eaters ruled the world, as if no Death Eaters ruled the school, as if Harry had never crawled through the entrance hall covered with corpses.

Harry pulled his injured hand to his chest, the arm felt wooden and numb from the elbow down. "What has he done to me?"

Snape looked away.

Harry blinked and saw the twisting spiral of an angry leech, felt the stabbing heat like a brand against his scar. He supposed his scar had grown after that encounter. "That spell. It took something."

Snape rose, pacing along the length of the bed and toward the window.

"What did he take? Answer me!"

Snape turned, his stare as intense as it never was during Potions class. "Your magic."

The tension that curled itself into a tight knot in Harry's stomach exploded outwards with thousands pins and needles, twisting his gut with the finality of a noose pulling tight.

_He's lying. Has to be._

Ever since Harry'd heard Hagrid's booming voice, _'Harry - yer a wizard'_ , he knew, he just knew, this is something no one could take away from him _._ No matter what happened to him, no matter what Voldemort did, Harry always had magic.

_But he has no reason to lie. Oh shit. Is it really gone? It can't be! How can I kill Voldemort if I can't even cast a single spell? How am I supposed to defend myself? How will I live? How long will I survive?_

"All of it?" Harry asked with dread.

"Yes."

 _Accio wand,_ Harry tried, and his good hand flexed with the futility of it all, reaching in the direction where he knew Snape would hide his wand. _Accio, dammit!_

Nothing. Although for a brief second it seemed like a spark of magic had travelled through his arm, like an itch in a phantom limb. It was nothing though. It didn't work worth a damn.

"C-can I get it back?" Harry asked, softer.

Snape didn't answer.

"Snape?" Harry questioned.

A small shake of Snape's head was his answer. "I don't know. No one's ever succeeded."

_Oh no. If Snape doesn't know… Nononono!_

"Fuck." The curse was familiar though he couldn't remember whose voice stirred his memory. He supposed that was the only curse he still had the power to wield. Frantic, he looked around, searching the room for anything he could use as a weapon if need be. Anything to protect himself. Those candlesticks looked sharp and heavy enough to serve as a makeshift pitchfork.

"There's no reason to panic. You are safe at the moment," Snape continued softly. "Or as safe as you can be, considering the circumstances. What you need is to rest and recover."

Harry felt as though he'd been asleep for too long and didn't know how to shake off this nightmare. Perhaps if he'd waited long enough, he'd wake up in the Gryffindor dormitory to Ron's morning chatter and everything would be right again.

Deep down he knew it wasn't possible. Thinking further on it would be like scratching a scabbed-over wound, like staring into the Mirror of Erised one afternoon too many.

*

 _'He'll never remember you,'_ Tom Riddle from the post-torture fever-dreams had told Ginny. ' _When I'm done with him, he won't even know your name.'_

The cell they'd pushed Ginny into was smaller than the last one she spent her days in. There was someone inside, a person. A witch. Older than herself.

"Hi," Ginny said. "What's your name?"

Silence. The woman's shoulders were wide, her knobby knees were bare and her ankles bruised: not as bad as Harry's wounded foot, but it still made Ginny wince.

"Are you all right?" Ginny spoke in a cheery tone she didn't quite feel. Cheerful moments were something that happened long ago, not now and not to her. "I'm Ginny."

The woman stirred and drew her hand over her face, smudging the dirt across her forehead. "Ellie," she said, her voice gruff and low enough to be a whisper.

"Nice to meet you, Ellie," Ginny said, tasting copper and swallowing blood. "Wish it was on a better day though."

Ellie rolled her eyes. "What could possibly make you say _that_?"

Ginny's jaw still ached from the punch and she'd wondered if that one tooth was loose, prying it with her tongue. "Only that I've tried to bite the fingers of the last bastard who touched me and it's not even noon. If I had my wand with me..."

She could hear the deep bout of Ellie's cough and as she drew her breath again, a croak emerged: "You're a feisty one. What did you do to them to get sent all the way here, into my cell?"

"Not enough," Ginny said. "Not nearly enough. So, how long have you been down here?"

"A year. Or so the guards tell me."

"What?" _Bloody hell,_ Ginny thought, and she could just hear Ron's voice saying it, so clearly as if he stood beside her and it brought tears to her eyes. Only he'd follow up with something even more graphic than Ginny's hexes in the direction of the guards. _All alone for a year. What would that do to a person? It's a wonder she still remembers how to speak._ "Has anyone been here with you, besides me?"

Ellie shook her head. "Those scumbags guarding the door. Wouldn't count them as a proper company though."

Ginny'd wondered what she herself would want to hear had she been alone in a cell for that long. Harry's terrified stare and Harry's hand reaching for hers had haunted her memory still. "OK, Ellie. Look. Things will change. Soon. I've got friends, one friend in particular, and she's coming to rescue us as soon as she can…" She blinked. "What? What is it?"

Ginny wondered if she'd said something funny because Ellie's laughter shook her skeletal form as she threw her head back and cried out. Even Ellie's laugh sounded like a muffled scream.

"What's wrong?"

"You're new here," Ellie came into the centre of the cell, into the light, and Ginny could tell she wasn't at all as young as Ginny thought, perhaps someone old enough to be her mother. Someone old enough to have her hair turned all grey. "I can tell."

Ellie reached out and her grip on Ginny's old robe was strong enough that Ginny heard the worn fabric ripping. She yelped in response and fisted her hands, ready to strike. In response Ellie's shoulders sagged, her grip turned frail, as her fingers unfolded and her palm pressed flat against Ginny's shoulder. It tapped lightly. Was it in approval? To comfort Ginny perhaps? Or maybe her hands just shook with stress. Ginny couldn't tell.

"No one's coming. Get used to it, girl." Ellie pulled back and limped into the opposite corner, the one in the shadow so dark, Ginny could barely see Ellie's glare, gleaming, and none of her scowl. "It's just the way things are now."

*

Harry fumbled for the glasses offered to him and tried them on. They fit and made his vision sharp again, a good replacement for his broken pair.

He wore striped pyjamas, the kind someone in the hospital wing would wear. By the bedside, he saw a pile of ragged scraps. His jeans, his boots, one lonely sock, all dirtied and soiled and torn. There must've been a spell over them to contain the stench. Harry wrinkled his nose and reached into the pocket. He took out a scrap of enchanted fabric, knots tied in it at both ends. The silky ribbon coiled like a miniature snake in his hand.

"What month is it?" he croaked, turning toward Snape.

"June," Snape answered, as swift and impersonal as if reading an examination schedule in class.

"Ha," Harry was too tired to do anything but laugh, so deeply, it sent a stab of pain through his sore throat. "So six months on the run, then six in that bloody cell. Didn't feel like a year. Not like a year alone, in any case."

He remembered spending a day once pulling at his chain trying to reach the iron door. He failed. Once Harry stopped marking the count of days on the wall for a week: he told himself had no need for routine, sheer rage kept him breathing and thinking and waiting. Not even for the right moment. For a chance, any chance at all.

"You weren't alone," Snape intoned, so soft and patient. It was bloody infuriating.

"Sodding hell, I know there were people all around me! Dying, all thanks to that monster. Don’t tell me what to think. I was _there_!"

"Yes. You were _not_ alone," Snape repeated with that sheer bloody-minded stubbornness and it was all Harry needed to push him over the edge.

"Were you the one watching me? Huh? Is that what he had you do to earn me as a prize? 'Detention, Potter.' A fucking warden. Suits you well."

Snape's mouth was a thin, sharp line. "Would you rather I left you for dead, to the Dark Lord's mercy?"

"Really? You're going to threaten me with that?" Harry's lips parted on their own and a croak of a laugh tickled his throat. "I stopped wishing for death after my first week in that cell." He flexed his left hand to force it to stop shaking and closed his fingers over his wand hand, forcing the numb appendage into a fist. "I want that fucker dead first."

"So do I." Snape's smile turned feral as he regarded him with a heavy stare. "Yet here we are." He spread his arms in a showy gesture.

"'We'?" Harry echoed 'cause now that was truly fucking hilarious. "Yeah right!"

"Tragic, I know."

Snape's morbid sense of humour apparently never went away, even in a world ruled by Voldemort. "Ha. Thoughtful of you to notice." Humour was one thing that didn't go away for Harry either. "Keep going like that and I suppose I might even owe you an apology," Harry spat out a concession. "After this is all over."

"Finally feeling indebted, are you?" Snape's eyes narrowed and his mouth curled into a nasty smirk. "So generous on your part."

The git. The absolute bastard. But if the memories Harry'd glimpsed in the Shrieking Shack were true, there was a chance Snape was still loyal to Dumbledore, or as loyal as Snape could ever be. At the moment, Harry couldn't be picky about his allies, not in his current position.

"Help me kill him," Harry said. "And you'll get all the thanks you ever want."

"Help _you_?" Snape's eyebrow climbed up toward his hairline. He turned to Harry as if inspecting a particularly troublesome beetle. "In case you haven't noticed, Potter, you're a squib and a cripple. Or has the Dark Lord's curse sapped any remaining common sense along with your magic?"

Harry's good hand curled around the scrap of fabric with a pair of knots in it. The ribbon was flat and worn. It's was the only thing here of value he still owned. "Fine. If you don't want to help, I'll do it myself."

"All right," Snape spat. "As you wish. But not anytime soon. You need to conserve your strength."

"What I need, is to fight! Fine, I can't use a wand, OK, but give me another weapon!" Harry snapped, aggravated at his own bloody weakness. "Anything's better than this. I still have one working arm. I can hold a sword. I can still squeeze a trigger. I just need to wait it out and then strike when he least expects it. All I'm asking for is one chance. One!"

"So I should arm you right after I barely got you away from harm, at a great personal risk. What could possibly go wrong?" Snape grimaced. "Use your brain. Do you want us both dead?"

"Do you have a better plan?"

"As a matter of fact…"

"Well?"

Snape arched his eyebrow. And then brought his index finger to his lips. "Patience, Potter."

"Patience?" Harry stared at him, incredulous. "Is that all you've got? My friends are dead and you're telling me I have to be patient?"

"Yes. And one more thing you should know which might be of interest." Snape's face was calm now, not a muscle twitching and that unreadable stare was beady and dark as ever. "Granger and Weasley both live."

Harry shook his head because that made absolutely no sense at all. "Huh? I saw Ron die. You were _there_." Snape's head tilted awkwardly, his eyes widened and his dark stare bore into Harry's, as if he was trying to read Harry's thoughts. There was only one thing left for Harry to ask then amid all the confusion. "And who's Granger?"

Snape frowned oddly, as if he was deep in thought. It was then that his stare pinned Harry down and he asked a question which also made no sense: "What do you remember about the battle at Hogwarts?"

Harry groaned. "You know as well as I do what happened."

"Indulge me," Snape insisted. It was hard not to comply with that stare.

"I… can't remember half of the things I saw, it's all a blur."

"Just what you remember. Focus on the names, all the people that were there."

 _All the people I saw die, he means. Sadistic sod. But what did happen?_ Harry wondered. It was such a chaotic whirlwind, all of it. "OK then," Harry grumbled. He still didn't see the point of revisiting the day of his greatest failure. _What use is it for me to tell him what he probably already knows? He's a Legilimens._ "There were loads of fighting. Crowds everywhere. Us. Them. Spells flying." _In the Great Hall, someone was supervising students. Someone…_ Harry shook his head. The memory stirred up the metallic smell of blood and the whistling of hexes flying past him. "So, Dumbledore's brother, Aberforth, he supervised the evacuation through the passage to the Hog's Head. Then Ron came out of the Chamber of Secrets, he had the broken cup. Someone's asked about Lupin, but I didn't know where he was, of if he was still alive. Then Malfoy, Goyle. Crabbe was… he died. The Fiendfyre," Harry choked. "I… I couldn't help him. Couldn't help Fred either. We moved Fred. He was… w-was gone then. Ron's face, I'll never forget it. And… when I went to face Voldemort, and I used the stone and it might sound weird but I saw my dad and Sirius… but I wasn't strong enough and Voldemort won. He did. He killed me, I don't know how else to say it. I even saw Dumbledore. But then I wasn't dead and… Hagrid carried me… and they all saw it, saw me fail, Ron and Neville and Seamus." Focus on the names, Snape said. All the people. Well then, this was as close to that request as Harry could get. Ron and Neville and Seamus Harry repeated in his head over and over. Ron and Neville and Seamus and Hagrid and Aberforth and Fred.

"Did you see anyone else with your father and Black?"

Harry frowned. "Lupin. Remus. He was there too. That meant that he was killed. That was… I knew how Ron felt then. Losing family."

"Was there anyone else?"

"I don't remember anyone." Harry frowned. "What? Why?"

Snape's face grew grim. "Let us test a theory. Name a witch you know. The first one that comes to your mind."

 _Oh, that's simple,_ Harry thought. _Wait, it should be simple. Hang on…_ With worry clawing at him, Harry wracked his brain, his memory for names, any names, familiar or barely remembered. If not names, then faces. Or words spoken to him at some point. There had to be women in his life, classmates, teachers, family and friends. But their faces, their personalities, their voices were not there to find. Instead, there were blanks, empty spaces made so smooth and small that his thoughts merely glossed over them to the next subject.

But then there was a glimpse of something… something at last. Another's childhood memory: Snape's. Two girls playing on a swing. 'Lily, don't do it!' one of them shouted.

"Lily," Harry said, at last, echoing the memory of a long-gone moment, and a name like that was definitely a girl's name, his mind supplied. "She was on a swing and she flew. You were there, you were watching her."

A strange sound escaped Snape's throat, not unlike a sob.

"I'm sorry, Potter," Snape had said, his voice sombre and low. He looked as if he was fighting some tremendous weight threatening to crush him whole. "I'm so sorry."

 _What has he got to be sorry for?_ Harry closed his eyes and forced his fuzzy brain to do what Snape had asked him to do. To recall the battle of Hogwarts.

 _Harry ran, to the battle, not from. Chaos reigned. The front line of the charging centaurs cut down quickly by a cruel cutting hex aimed at their legs. Voldemort's giants stamped their feet over the battlefield, not caring whom they stepped on. Still hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak, Harry was buffered toward the entrance hall. He was searching for Voldemort and thought he saw a glimpse, but then... The house-elves swarmed the entrance, wielding carving knives and cleavers, screaming at the top of their lungs. Kreacher was at their head, yelling Regulus Black's name to anyone who cared to listen. "FIGHT!" They hacked and stabbed at the ankles and shins of the surrounding humans, malice clear on their tiny faces. But everywhere Harry looked Death Eaters were overwhelming them like a black angry horde, swallowing up the disjointed pockets of fighters._ It's not over yet, _Harry had told himself._ Not yet! _He sped between duellers, past the prisoners and the dead and into the Great Hall._

_There, Yaxley held his own against George and Lee Jordan, Dolohov overpowered Flitwick and joined Macnair to advance on Hagrid. Ron and Neville fought Fenrir together. Aberforth's stunner barely missed Rockwood. Thicknesse cast aiming for Percy but Arthur's hastily cast shield has prevented the worst of the damage. Lucius Malfoy sped through the crowds, the Killing Curse poised at his poised wand tip, shouting a summons for his son to join him. And then Ron was there and…_

_Oh, Ron! No, I can't think of it now._

"I don't understand," Harry frowned. "Something's just not right. I remember that bastard Macnair's name, so why can't I think of a single -"

"- woman?" Snape sighed.

 _Yes. There must have been a witch at Hogwarts that day. Someone. Anyone! I mean. That's half of everyone I ever knew._ Harry thought back, further yet, on his childhood, on Dudley's gang and Uncle Vernon's cruelty. There had to have been neighbours whose names he should know. There had to have been another in that childhood kitchen Harry'd spent his early mornings in, preparing breakfast. He concentrated. The absence of that particular memory left behind a shrill silence and a taste of kitchen scraps.

 _This is wrong. This is seriously wrong. How can I not remember? If there's time to panic, it's now._ Harry drew a shaky breath. _What's wrong with me?_

"Your mother's name was Lily," Snape told him and the words were like a bell tolling in absolute silence.

The admission struck Harry like a shock, like ice cold water of a lake. Not the name itself, but the frightening realisation that his mother's name had been a blank slate up to the second Snape'd said it. His memory held no face to go with the name. No words. Just the barest trace of a feeling. Warmth. _Voldemort killed dad when I was a baby. Did he kill my mum too?_

_Lily._

Harry nodded, thinking of two girls by the playground swing, and of a boy watching them.

"Your aunt's name is Petunia," Snape continued with utmost patience as if instructing a first-year student. "Your housemates were Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil. Your Quidditch instructor's name was Rolanda Hooch. Your teachers were Pomona Sprout. Sybill Trelawney. Minerva McGonagall."

"Were?" Harry echoed with dread. "As in…?"

There was a deep shadow over Snape's face. "It's unknown whether _all_ of them perished in battle. You might find solace in that."

Harry nodded.

Snape spoke of the others then. Poppy Pomfrey. Irma Pince. There was an odd significance with which Snape said certain names. As if they were dear to him, as if perhaps he grieved for them in the way Harry no longer felt capable of.

_They died for our cause, the least I can do is remember. But I can't even do that. What kind of person does that make me?_

*

"Do you have any siblings?" Ginny asked and her teeth clicked together 'cause the cell was cold and they hadn't had food since yesterday and her back still stung from the last hex that Bellatrix Lestrange, that sadistic bitch, had hurled in her direction when they took Ginny out, probably to gloat again at her misery. "I've got six older brothers." Ginny grew silent. "Had six, before the war."

Ellie shook her head.

"Not anymore. My mum too..." Ginny grew quiet, her throat raw with the loss, too raw to continue speaking. "Never heard what happened to Dad."

"I had two sisters," Ellie said breaking the silence. "Younger." There was a long pause followed by a sick-sounding cough. "I don't know where they are."

"Did they take them away?" Ginny gasped. "The bastards."

Ellie shook her head. "Both have joined their ranks. Twins, couldn't do a thing apart. Guess it's true what they say about Slytherins. It's all about the Marks." Her angular face grew grim.

Ginny let out a hiss through her teeth. "I'm sorry," she said. Dead serious, even though mourning someone joining that monster's army was nowhere near losing one's family to the Death Eater's Killing Curse.

"Don't be sorry. They've made their choice. A Dark Mark is as final as it gets. Sucks the soul right out of you until anything human is gone."

Ellie was a decent sort of person, at least. Despite how her sisters had turned out.

Ginny thought of the older students from Slytherin, of their precious Professor Snape. Yeah, she thought. That's pretty much it. "Some never have been people at all. Not when it counts. And some cosy up to those monsters 'cause they're too much of a coward to do anything else but grovel."

Ellie nodded, her gaze distant. "Better off dead if you ask me." She pulled the scab from the deep claw marks on her forearm and turned her head toward Ginny, blowing hanks of grey hair out of her eyes. "Have you heard anything from your friend, the one that was coming for you?"

Ginny shook her head. "I don't know where she is now." _I hope she's alive. Please be alive, Hermione._

*

At night Harry stared at the darkness of the ceiling, at the sharp rays of moonlight falling through the gap in the curtains, and tried, desperately, to hold onto the fleeting names. "Lily. Hermione," he told himself. "Ginny. Minerva McGonagall. Sprout. Pomfrey. Pince." His memory only suggested faceless shades and silence, but reason told him they were people he cared about, people he knew, and the least he could do is to honour them by remembering.

In the morning, he awoke not knowing again, but aware that something he knew once had slipped away just beyond his reach as soon as he had fallen asleep.

He marched into the Headmaster's office ignoring Winky's frantic calls of 'breakfast, Harry Potter sir!' "Tell me again," he demanded of Snape. "I need their names!"

Snape frowned, casting a swift diagnostic spell over Harry which left him feeling as if all air around him had become a fizzy soda. "It's unwise. I don't know how closely the memory charm on you is tracked. And if it shows significant use..."

"Just tell me about my mum," Harry interrupted him. "I deserve to know, don't I?"

Silence. Snape looked less sure of himself than before.

"You gave me those memories!" Harry persisted. "You wanted someone to know what you have done. What you still do for her."

Snape looked down at the hands folded on his lap as he sat in his chair, silent and solemn.

"Above all, Lily loved life. I... admired that. Always."

Harry held his breath. Took a step forward.

"Now that I have your attention," Snape rose, making himself tall and imposing, like a cobra towering over its prey, "there are rules you must - and will - follow. For her sake, if you don't seem to value your own life."

Harry blinked.

"One, you are not in the position to demand anything of me." Snape's voice was level, soft enough that Harry had to lean forward to hear him better. "Two, for your own safety, you will learn to act as befits someone in my care, even if it kills you. Three," Snape drew a breath, "And I do believe it's obvious, you are not to leave the castle without my explicit permission."

Harry was about to protest that he wasn't a complete idiot as Snape's stare bore into him. Snape wore a vicious smirk.

"And Potter?"

"Yeah?"

"Get out. And remember, I will not be threatened in my office again."

"Rule number four, is it?" Harry questioned, testing his own luck.

Snape inclined his head. "Merely a statement of fact."

Harry clenched his teeth and slammed the heavy door just a bit too quickly on the way outside. Snape deserved nothing less.

He spent that day in solitude. Even supper was silent and subdued. Harry ate alone. Snape, apparently, could hold a grudge the size of a hippogriff when he had a point to prove. Fine then, Harry didn't need his company. Not when the bastard held Harry's current situation over his head. As if Harry'd endanger them both over a suicide mission. As if he had no common sense to spare.

Well then, he would just have to wait for the right moment and prove the stubborn sod wrong. He had nothing else left to do.

*

The next morning Harry awoke to the usual panic of grasping for names and coming across those polished empty spaces in his memory, so smooth that his thoughts swiftly slid over to the next subject. His stomach roiled. The quiet horror of it made him choke on his own bile.

But then an understanding dawned. _We spoke about my mum, yesterday. I remember. I don't remember what he said, but I remember we spoke about her. Her name is… was…_

Harry forced himself to take in a panicked breath and focused on that one elusive thought he could not grasp.

A girl on a swing from someone else's childhood.

_Lily!_

_Her name is Lily._

_Oh god, I am a right mess. Why can't I remember anyone else? I… I have to do something. Anything._

There was a quill on the table in the corner. Harry picked it up with his good hand. He put his injured hand down on the scroll so it didn't roll closed, pinning it flat.

Harry had put the nib of the quill to the parchment. Writing with his left hand was unfamiliar. _How did Neville ever manage it so neatly?_

'Lily', he scribbled in large, shaky letters. The beginning of a long list.

_“Mummy said you weren’t allowed, Lily!”_

_“But I’m fine,” said Lily, giggling. “Tuney, look at this. Watch what I can do.”_

'Tuney', he put the nib against the parchment.

It was a start.

His mind wandered, searching through Snape's memories for other names. His mum's sister didn't like magic. 'Freak,' she'd snapped at young Snape.

"Evans, Lily. Gryffindor!" A grey-haired witch dropped the Sorting Hat onto his mother's head. Harry searched his memory for the person holding the Sorting Hat at his own ceremony. He didn't remember, but there had to be a good chance that the same witch had held the Sorting Hat over his own head.

Professor Dumbledore had been in Snape's memories, asking Snape to kill him, planning it as meticulously as if planning a lesson. “I thought...all those years...that we were protecting him for her. For Lily.” Snape had thrown back at the Headmaster.

Harry stilled. His temples throbbed with a headache and his blood ran hot with anger, at himself, at Snape. He didn't know why he was so angry at Snape. Perhaps for showing compassion when for so many years Harry'd expected none from him and then withdrawing it. With one shared moment, with a handful of shared thoughts, Snape had made Harry believe he was human and thus making Harry hope again that maybe they stood a chance of killing Voldemort. Hope is something Harry couldn't afford to have, not anymore. It had been the first thing to go when he had been captured.

Harry was on his own. Always had been.

He stared at his left hand. Flexed it and extended it over the quill lying flat on the table surface.

He thought of all the classes at Hogwarts and how sodding useless they were to him now. He recalled Filch stumbling through the corridors with his Muggle tools and felt small and numb, petrified from head to toe like that bloody cat, Mrs Norris, had been once. He didn't even know if Filch or his cat had survived the battle.

"Accio quill," he said, feeling warmth in his fingertips.

The quill remained dormant in its place, fluffy filaments alongside the base ruffled by Harry's breath.

"Accio quill!" Harry repeated.

_Nothing._

_Was his futile attempt as useless as writing out the forgotten names on a piece of parchment? Which one was less of a waste of his efforts and time?_

He'd thought of Snape again, that night. _'In his care', my arse!_ Maybe it was only natural to think about your captor because that's what Snape really was, wasn't he? Despite rescuing Harry. He was someone who Harry was stuck interacting with day in and day out, but that was nothing new. Besides, Snape had the memories of people Harry'd lost, the memories he so desperately needed. He was the only link to the normalcy of 'before' that Harry had right now.

And despite it all, Harry couldn't help but wonder about Snape himself, a puzzle of a man. Snape was not the cold, sarcastic professor from his memories. The real Snape, the moment he showed Harry his humanity, that one time, had been as fascinating as the Half-Blood Prince's handwritten notes in the margin.

Harry's mind kept going back to that moment in the Shrieking Shack, when Snape discovered his presence and not only spared his life but shared something significant with him. "Look at me," he had commanded, and then an avalanche of memories had followed, the memories that were now the only frame of reference to normalcy Harry had, stuck in a mind that had such a large part of itself missing.

There was a skinny, sallow-skinned boy in Snape's memories, and then a young adult craving the love he could never have, and then an older man honouring a long-lost memory. There was something profoundly sad in that, but also poignant and intense, the same quiet intensity with which Snape had cast his Patronus and sent the silver doe prancing through the air of the Headmaster's office.

He thought of Snape during the final battle, placing himself between Harry and his final stand. His battle with Voldemort that had never taken place. It had been clear to Harry by then that the Elder Wand's all-powerful wielder was not someone one man could defeat, or even an army could overpower. They were losing, and badly. Hogwarts was lost. Ron was dead and Harry was lunging toward him and then… Snape was there, in the middle of the battle, wand raised, barely a twitch in Harry's direction. A warning spell hit the ground at Harry's feet and propelled him out of the hall, still cloaked and invisible, shutting the Great Hall's doors for good. Cutting Harry off from reaching Voldemort. Or was it keeping Voldemort from reaching him? No matter how much he'd tried to shove that memory out of his mind, no matter how insignificant he tried to make it, so it didn't damn Snape in Voldemort's eye if he'd ever glimpsed it in Harry's mind, still, there was no escaping the fact.

By shutting those doors, Snape may have saved him. Snape wanted him to flee to live another day. And Harry did, despite how wrong it felt. They were losing, then, but on the back of Harry's mind was that one doubt: by closing those doors shut, had Snape, the master tactician of the Dark Lord, altered the course of the war?

 _The war's not yet over,_ Harry had to remind himself. Because no Gryffindor would consider any yet-unwon battle as finished.

_It was just one battle. The war's still on._

*

Patience, Snape had cautioned him. But they didn't have time for patience. Voldemort had to die now. The longer he stayed alive, the more lives he would take, the more hopes he would ruin. Another family would have to suffer while Harry summoned his patience.

_Bloody hell!_

Harry focused on his wand hand as it stayed flat on the table. He stared at his fingertips, flushed pink and purple. He had rubbed them to stimulate the blood flow. Snape had apparently fixed up the bones, but with the nerve damage, there was little he could do to speed up the healing process.

Harry had spent a good minute trying to flex his fingers, but his own hand felt as alien to him as a glove stuffed with straw. Aside for some mild tingling at the wrist, the hand remained a numb, dead weight. Angry scratches in an odd circular pattern swelled pink and puffy right above his wrist, the reminder of the furious whirlwind of the snitch's sharp wings in the hall where they tortured him. They resisted all healing spells Snape had directed at his hand earlier.

He was trying so hard but none of it mattered!

Harry slammed his other hand against the table, rattling the plate and the cutlery.

_Damn it. Damn it all!_

"Winky can help Harry Potter with that," a tiny house-elf that Harry suspected hadn't left his side, only hid herself, had spoken up. Her long ears twitched.

"No, Winky." He took great care to repeat her name and had wondered if he'd forget that too in the morning. "No help necessary."

With a haze in his memories, Harry recalled a house-elf that had spoon fed him when he was still in bed, had cautioned him from eating too much at once when he was overwhelmed by all the wonderful smells and tastes of food after months of starvation. Harry strongly suspected it had been her.

Harry had wondered how much the house-elves of Hogwarts had helped Filch with his day-to-day activities. He hadn’t appeared to be relying on them too much. Well then, if grumpy old Filch had managed years without help, Harry could manage too.

He picked up the fork with his left hand, forgoing the knife altogether, and bit into the slice of glazed ham as he lifted the entire floppy piece of it, almost as big as the plate itself, to his mouth.

Obviously, Snape wasn't joining him for supper this evening. Again. So what did Harry's lack of manners matter?

 _It's for the best,_ Harry told himself. _I don't need him! It's not like I want his company. No sane bloke would._

*

The next day, after breakfast, Harry wandered toward the only place he knew Snape might be. As he turned the corner, he saw that at the entrance to the Headmaster's office the familiar gargoyle was gone, and instead, a giant snake guarded the way in. It shifted to the side to let out a hurrying house-elf and Harry darted in and climbed the stairs.

A witch of Harry's age sat in Snape's office. She wore a plain robe, except for the massive silver necklace in the shape of yet another snake coiled around her neck. The serpent's fangs closed painfully piercing the skin around an artery. It made Harry wonder how far some people went for the sake of fashion.

"You know how sensitive the situation is," Snape argued in a frantic whisper. "It's best if you don't."

There were no sherbet lemons at the table and no comfortable chaos. The tabletop was pristinely clean, only a couple stacks of papers disrupting the impeccable facade.

The witch sat up stiffly and appeared to measure her words with great care. _Did that cobra she was wearing just move?_

"Please pass on my condolences to Narcissa," Snape spoke louder. "And Lucius. On the lack of good news." Afterwards, he slid a small packet across the table.

"Yes." The witch snatched the packet off the table surface and slid it into her robes, growing incredibly still. "Certainly, Headmaster. The entire household awaits the cause for celebration." She sounded so hollow at that final line. "I appreciate your concern."

"Harry," Snape turned to him, as his gaze stopped Harry in his tracks in the doorway. "Come in."

"Hi… er, I'm sorry, I don't know if I should know you," Harry said, unsure of how the poor sods in Snape's 'care' should behave for the sake of appearances. If it wasn't for that charmed necklace, the witch didn't look rich or powerful. She didn't seem like she wanted him harmed. Her arm was unmarked. She looked more like a servant, with her frizzy hair pulled back and her fingers free of jewellery. Perhaps the Malfoys kept human servants these days? "I'm Harry."

"Harry! How are you?" the stranger blurted out, with an odd look in her eyes, as if she was about to cry or shout all at once. As if her silent scream was already filling the castle to the point of bursting. "Oh, of course you wouldn't remember. I'm Hermione. Hermione Granger."

That name and her voice made Harry feel hollow, like an emptied library shelf. _I should know her. Who is she?_

Snape's eyebrow lifted. "The Malfoys allow you the dignity of keeping your name, Miss Granger? How _humane_ of them."

Hermione Granger's warm fingers stiffened and twitched in Harry's grasp, as he held them with his good hand. It was all so strange and it felt like being in Tom Riddle's head, holding a dying bird in his grasp. A struggling, living thing about to suffocate.

She withdrew her hand swiftly.

"I have to go," she said. "Take care, Headmaster. H-harry."

"Who is she?" he'd asked Snape as soon as she departed.

Snape's lips thinned. "At the moment, a captive, much like the one you consider yourself. One with the sense not to ask many questions."

*

During the day, Harry'd wandered the castle's corridors and hallways, hoping there's something in them to jolt his missing memories. There were portraits of witches here and there, their names written right on the picture frames. Some hadn't been dusted for quite a while though, and for the others, he had to lift a sheet of fabric, covering them from wandering eyes, to see them. He'd passed Anne Boleyn near the second-floor landing, Helena Ravenclaw near the Library.

"Hello," a black-haired witch's portrait greeted him as he approached the frame. 'Valeria Myriadd' it said. There was something striking about the way she held herself, looking down at him from the advantage of her portrait's height.

"Hi. Why are you holding that fairy?" Harry asked, happy for conversation.

She shrugged her shoulders covered with fur and exchanged a knowing look with the fairy in her hand, who released a sharp buzz. "You already asked that yesterday, young man. Are you feeling alright?"

"Sorry!" Harry said and took a step back.

"Companionship and fashion advice, if you must know," she called out after him as he continued walking down the corridor. "His grasp of fashion is beyond compare. You look like you could use it. Right after a haircut." She exchanged a few words with her fairy in a series of high-pitched whispers and the fairy's equally high-pitched laughter followed.

Harry kept on walking, feeling both embarrassed and giddy. She reminded him a lot of Snape.

He walked past a section he distinctly remembered being turned into rubble. Whatever remained of the battle damage had now been repaired. How odd it was to see it all transformed to suit the new Headmaster's austere tastes. The emerald curtains blocked out the sun, the torches burned silver, and even the stone walls had a muted grey sheen to them instead of the warm and familiar brown. It's as if the castle itself was in mourning with its crypt-like classrooms, their shelves deep as burial vaults, the dusty slabs of desks lined up like coffins.

The ornate arches had a gothic twist to them and the staircases looked more ominous to climb, forcing Harry to lift his feet up higher than he was used to. A perpetual chill hung in the air, despite summer. The halls and the dungeons and the staircases all looked abandoned as if all the Hogwarts Professors Harry remembered were only gone for the summer and the house-elves stayed out of Harry's sight. As if no battle had ever transpired here.

Harry hadn't gone down to the Great Hall. He was afraid of all the ghosts he might find below. Afraid of who would not be there either. Afraid of not knowing. That slow screech of the massive doors closing shut haunted his memory still. He didn't venture down onto the bottom floor either. _Not yet._ He'd wondered though if Snape had been left to deal with the battle burials on his own, alone, with the help of the remaining house-elves.

_Who else would help Snape bury 'the traitors'? And where?_

Whatever windows were open had shown a spattering of gravestones by the edge of the Forbidden Forest, too many of them. From a distance, Harry could not see the names inscribed on each. Were they only the graves of Voldemort's followers or had the monster, in a fit of generosity, allowed Snape to bury the dead despite the side they had fought for? He didn't seem the type to be that generous.

The Library looked abandoned, its librarian - long-absent, judging by the dust gathered on the catalogue. Although someone had been here lately. Harry spotted a familiar dark cloak draped over a reading chair in the corner. There was only one person it could have possibly belonged to.

A book rested on the table nearby, a heavy volume, and Harry turned it over, confirming that it was indeed _Hogwarts, A History_. Harry flipped through the book, suddenly curious to see if Snape had kept the Half-Blood Prince's habit of scribbling scathing notes in the margins.

 _'Despite what these two portraits may now claim, the labour of house-elves has been used extensively at the castle throughout the years,'_ said the familiar hurried scrawl next to the pictures and names of a former Headmistress and Headmaster: Dillys Derwent and Armando Dippet. ' _The house-elves are not reimbursed for their work, but provided with a place to live and a share of the table scraps. They report to the Hogwarts Headmaster or, in the Headmaster's absence, to the Caretaker, for their daily tasks. With the appointment of Argus Filch, a Squib, it was deemed inappropriate to place such vital responsibility for the magical creatures on a man incapable of spell-casting. Thus, a secondary Caretaker was appointed among the house-elves to fill the demand. Scrummy stepped up to the task admiringly despite her kin's tendency to surrender autonomy to their human Masters. She considered herself a devoted Servant-Leader until her untimely death during the attack of Hogwarts."_

Harry traced the handwritten note on the margins with his fingers, so familiar it had been. _Back to your old tricks, huh, Half-Blood Prince_? He smiled, tracing his fingers over Snape's private rebellion against his own master. It gave him strength to know that despite it all, the messages on the margins had persevered. Perhaps this one will live for decades, reaching a new reader many years from now.

Harry collected the cloak, folded it as best as he could with only one hand, and carried the heavy, draping fabric in a twisted bundle up the wide staircases into the Headmaster's office.

Once, he'd carried his Invisibility Cloak just like this. The thin band over his wrist shifted, faulty magic turning the skin invisible just enough to see the pulsing vein.

 _Is that what Voldemort thought I'd be to Snape,_ Harry thought with newfound amusement. _His personal house-elf? 'Master has given Harry a sock.' Several socks, actually, and the rest of what I'm wearing._ He smiled defiantly through the uneasy roil of his stomach at the memory of Dobby buried on the coast.

_Here Lies Dobby, a Free Elf._

Harry's eyes stung. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision and pushed his fingers through his hair.

_I can't dwell on the past, I have to think of the future. I must. Or so many still alive won't stand a chance._

_Oh, who am I kidding, we've lost so many chances already._

*

"Good day," Harry told the snake that guarded Snape's office. As imposing as it looked, it was still a piece of Hogwarts. He didn't believe it would consciously try to harm any resident of the castle, so it didn't hurt to try to be nice.

"Greetingss," the snake answered, her emerald eyes glistening within their stone sockets.

"Will you let me through?"

"Password."

"Oh come on, I'm not even a student. Not anymore."

"Password!"

"Bloody hell! Really?!" Suddenly it seemed so much easier to sneak in after a stray house-elf like Harry had done before. _What kind of password would the sadistic sod come up with? Probably something long and complicated. Definitely Latin._

"Serpens, nisi serpentem comederit, non fit draco," sounded from above in Snape's impatient tones. He was speaking too fast for Harry to even begin comprehending what that was.

"Yess, Headmaster, well said!" The statue moved aside with little protest.

"Wait. What was that about Draco?" Harry squinted at the snake.

She coiled her tail into an elaborate knot. "S-step in."

" _That_ was the password?" Harry grumbled as the spiral staircase slithered silently in a circle, like a winding serpent itself. "Seriously, Snape? Do you _want_ your students to hate you? Not to mention me. I'll never remember that!"

He unfolded the bundle he carried all this way and draped it over Snape's tall-backed chair.

Snape emerged from one of the side rooms, a stack of books in his grasp. He took one look at Harry and rolled his eyes. "Provided your memory isn't what it used to be, you may use 'memento mori' from now on to enter this office and you will be allowed in. Now, what is so urgent that you had to disrupt my reading?"

"Oh, I know my memory's crap. That much I remember. You don't have to mock me."

"Potter, I wasn't -" the thin line of Snape's mouth tensed even more. "I'm doing you a favour."

Harry sighed. _Right. Fine!_ "Memento mori," he repeated feeling slow and powerless in a magical castle overlooking the magical woods and the lake full of magical creatures. "What does it mean? Doubt that's something you can buy at Honeydukes'."

Snape joined Harry by the window as they watched the distant clouds looming over the treetops. "It's a reminder that our existence here is short. And that death catches up with everyone."

"Got it," Harry said. "Cheerful."

"Merely a fact of life."

"What if I want death to catch up with a certain someone more than with anyone else?" Harry raised his hand, the one he still couldn't flex into a fist. "It's why I'm here. Can you look at my hand? There's been no change."

"None?"

"Well, I thought I felt it tingling, but I don't think thinking about it counts."

"Let me see." Snape produced his wand out of the folds of his robe and lifted Harry's wand hand to the level of his chest. He cast something long and complicated. Golden threads in an ornamental pattern filled the air around Harry's hand. Magic was so cool, especially when Harry couldn't wield a wand, but had to resort to watching others do so with ease.

"No visitors today?" Harry asked because he remembered there had been one yesterday. _But who was it? And what was it about? Doesn't matter really..._ He blinked in confusion, hating the way his thoughts skipped onto the next subject, smooth as river stones rolling.

"If you are referring to Hermione Granger, your former housemate is rarely allowed outside Malfoy Manor. So no."

Harry bit his lip, annoyed at the help Snape was offering in every line of his answer, filling in the context where he knew Harry could not. It all felt so wrong, still. He kept grasping at the conversation, but the key bits of it kept slipping out, just beyond the edge of awareness.

"I don't know what she must think of me. Some Gryffindor I am. Can't save anyone. Can't even save myself."

"Stop beating yourself up. It won't help anyone."

"Stop making excuses for me! All my life I've been raised to do one thing, and I couldn't even do that when the time came. I am a freak, that's all I am! I can't fight, can't cast spells, I can't even remember my own mum!"

"Potter." Snape sighed. "Look at me."

Harry lifted up his chin, cautious, unsure what to expect.

"This won't help you, but I have something that might. Follow me."

Snape strode into the alcove behind the bookshelves. Harry followed suit and took a step in, turning and stepping up to the Pensieve. A filled Pensieve. Memories swirled within, silver threads waiting to be examined in detail.

Snape stood beside it with the look of a man who knew exactly what he was about to do. He extended his hand to Harry.

"Come."

Confused but choosing to trust that one instruction, Harry reached out and took Snape's hand before being plunged into something resembling deep dark waters and falling, falling, settling on the floor of a memory. An empty classroom, the same one that Snape had used to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts in Harry's sixth year. As far as memories went, this one was frozen in space and time, no one entered through the doorway and the silence loomed in all that wide-open emptiness. Even Harry's footsteps were muffled and had no echo.

"What is all this?" Harry asked.

"A safe space." A soft brown bundle rested in Snape's arms. He offered it up and there was a flash of metal inside. The bundle was a Sorting Hat, Harry realised, peering closer. He approached, blinking in disbelief. A sword handle emerged from the fabric: large rubies encased in silver. Unmistakeable. _Godric Gryffindor's sword._ Harry reached out and took it, the fingers of his left hand grasping the handle at an awkward angle. _Would you look at that! Snape must've kept it all this time._

Harry's eyes widened. "Is this for me?"

"Yes."

He examined the blade, which was sharp, and gave it a few trial swings through the air.

"Good, Potter." Snape observed him quietly. "Very good. I want you to learn to wield it with your left hand. And I want you to train. Use all your time here to practice. It may be your only chance."

"I… Huh." Harry blinked. This was absolutely crazy. He was painfully aware of his shortcomings at that moment, of the fact that he still stumbled now and then and lost his balance due to an occasional cramp in his foot, of his wand hand hanging uselessly by his side. He felt old, certainly older than his age. His body could no longer be relied on. "Do you really think this is our best bet: me with a sword? Against a dark wizard in full power? That's about as good as a fork. He'll squash me." _And then he'll destroy the sword just like he destroys everything else._

Snape smirked. "You asked me to give you a weapon, didn't you? So I am giving you one."

_He believes I can use it. He believes in me. This means…_

_This means we might still have a chance. We have a plan. Some kind of plan. And I have a weapon. Could this really be our one last chance to kill him?_

Harry looked down at his useless wand hand. He could barely even feel it past the wrist. "Look, Snape, this isn't a good idea, you know it and I know it. I shouldn't even be holding this, with everything I've… I've… " _Done? Lost? Abandoned?_ Harry choked up on his own words, his throat tight. "Failed to do. I'm a terrible soldier. A terrible anything."

"Look, Potter." Snape sighed. "First, you are not terrible. And second, you are much more than a man-at-arms." Snape's gaze was warm, his voice, soft. Barely a whisper. And yet the words struck Harry like a bell tolling, disarmed him like a summer's storm about to knock him off his broom mid-flight. "Nobody thinks you are evil. You are not expendable, or irreparably broken. Stop measuring your worth as a tin toy soldier. You are not. Your body is not an instrument to another's victory. You are a human being with thoughts and needs. Never forget that. Or you cannot wield that sword."

Snape reached out for Harry's other hand, the working one, his fingers barely touching Harry's over the sword handle. Harry held his breath in anticipation. Wow, that sent shivers down his back. This was mental. Harry wasn't a six-year student pining after the Half-Blood Prince 'cause of something the bloke wrote on the margins! Not anymore. Not since the Prince had turned out to be Snape.

_Look at me, holding my breath over one touch, that's not normal. How does he do that?_

Harry got lost in that intent dark stare. They were standing so close, close enough for Harry's sigh to ruffle Snape's hair. He nodded, resolute. "Tell me what to do."

"I will cast a spell, you will evade and deflect. Let's practice that first."

Harry pushed aside all worry, and instead, he squeezed the hilt of the sword with his left hand and swung it in front of him, stepping back. Snape drew his wand and made a show of aiming at Harry's left shoulder. "Stupefy."

Harry ducked and rolled, sword tight on his grip.

  
"Again," Snape said. "Stupefy!" This time, he aimed square at Harry's chest. Harry lifted both arms in front of him and to his surprise, the spell rebounded from the sword's blade as if it was a mirror.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed. "That's new."

Snape's mouth stretched into a smirk. "Go on. Levicorpus!"

Harry swung the sword clumsily, enough to send the hex back in Snape's direction.

"Confringo!"

Harry tried jumping back, but the resulting explosion had sent him tumbling down, his sword clattering two feet away from him on the stone floor.

"Ow," he said, stumbling to his feet and rubbing his sore side.

"Pick it up," Snape told him. "Again."

Harry sighed. Holding a weapon with his left hand felt clumsy. He felt weak and powerless still, but Snape was relentless at trying again and again. After what felt like an hour, Snape took the sword from him and with a snap of his fingers sent the surroundings whirling all around Harry as they rose, as Harry lifted himself up from a swirling Pensieve. _Whoa._

"Are you all right?" Snape asked afterwards, his face shadowed by the dark curtain of his hair.

"Tired," Harry admitted. "And my hand's all weird. Still can't move my right one."

Snape approached him and lifted Harry's wrists up to the level of his chest. "Does one feel heavier than the other?" he inquired, tilting and examining Harry's palm.

Harry shook his head.

"Tingling? Throbbing?"

"Nothing."

"Very well," Snape sighed. "Let me know the moment anything changes."

"I will. So," Harry murmured, "Um, can I ask you something?"

"Go on…"

"What does it mean, our fates are tied? That we can't leave each other's side? Are you going to drop dead if I step out into the Forbidden Forest?"

"I thought you were too incoherent to remember that part." Snape's stormy frown showed exactly what he thought of Harry knowing. "It's unclear what would happen." He scowled. "Until then, it is wise for you to stay exactly where I expect you to be. Within Hogwarts' walls."

"I'm not a complete idiot, OK?" Harry grumbled. "I don't want you dead."

"Naturally. Since your chances of survival are directly tied with mine."

"Even if they weren't," Harry repeated stubbornly. "It's been a long war. Too long. No one else should die for me, or because of me. Not even you."

"Noted."

"I mean it!"

He raised his eyes at Snape and asked what had been on his mind for quite a while.

"Are you helping me 'cause of my mother?"

"I'd've done anything for Lily, but this time... I'd kept you out of trouble so many times, old habits die hard."

"A habit?" Harry spluttered. "You went through all that just out of habit? Come on. You volunteered to put your life on the line for me. And all I have to do is put one foot outside."

Snape's mouth curled. "What makes you think the wards would let you go past the front steps? I have some sense of self-preservation. After all, herding hapless nitwits was my job for years. Practice makes perfect."

"Really now? All that practice did nothing for your morbid sense of humour," Harry grumbled.

"You think I'm morbid? Me?" Snape's face distorted into an expression that did its best to show said morbidity. "Really, Potter."

"Well, you're a morbid bloke for sure," Harry smirked. "But sometimes morbid is not the worst thing ever. Considering what you did."

Snape's piercing stare splayed him, left him analysed and bisected like a book read from cover to cover. "Such as?"

"What you did for my mum and for me, I mean. It was… it cannot be repaid," Harry repeated softly because that was important. Very much so, in a way of broken things surviving to see life again. "Thank you. For showing me what you did and why. For her."

Snape's eyes narrowed. "I never said..."

"You didn't have to say it. Your Patronus speaks for itself," Harry argued. "It really helped us once, in the Forest. It's magnificent."

The deep shadows of Snape's face, the strands of hair over his face could not hide his dark stare. Harry looked, openly, and was struck by the view. He had to admit, at that moment, Snape made quite a sight to behold, the tilt of his head had a doe-like grace to it, and his poised stance was one of an animal about to sprint away.

The boy Harry saw in Snape's memories was walking hunched over, always hiding himself, with the jerky movements of a spider. But the boy had grown up long ago and what he had become had surprised Harry in a whole new way.

Morbid and magnificent. If Harry thought of it more, those two words suited Snape as no other.

*

At night, Harry thought of the Snape from the memories, which he had glimpsed in the Shrieking Shack. The Snape in Headmaster Dumbledore's office. Harry thought of the silver doe bursting forth from Snape's wand tip, landing on the floor gracefully and bounding across the room, leaping through the closed window, as if no man-made boundary could stop her. She had left behind a subtle silvery glow wherever she went, which had slowly faded to nothing.

In the memory, the sight of that glow fading had blurred and shifted, as if the viewer's eyes had been full of tears.

It was a different side of Snape. The mysterious Half-Blood Prince behind all the sarcastic comments in Harry's Potions textbook had grown up into a man. A man shaped by many years of mourning.

"After all this time?" Dumbledore had asked. And Snape had answered softly, "Always."

"I'd've done anything for Lily," Snape had told Harry. "But this time..." So it meant, this time around, he was saving Harry because he was Harry, not because he was his mother’s son. Not because Dumbledore had asked him.

Why did he save Harry's life? He had given an excuse, but never truly answered.  The question bothered Harry enough to keep him awake. Try as he might, he couldn't come up with any good answers.

*

Ellie's cough had got worse over the few days that followed and it worried Ginny enough to keep her awake. Just a couple of mum's potions, she thought, and Ellie would've been right as rain. But they had no potions here, just as they had no wands. There was water in the pitcher, cold and salty as seawater. And there were table scraps that the house-elves delivered every morning and evening on a single plate to their cell. Ginny wasn't bound to anyone anymore and there were no chains. Though the deep, untreated scar on the back of her neck still reminded her of that heavy collar that had bound her to Hermione.

Here, she was free to move around the cell. Still, the bars on the door spoke for themselves.

 _Is Harry still in that one horrible cell we left him in?_ Ginny had wondered, lying awake at night as Ellie's cough kept her up.

_Will he survive? How will it change him?_

She pictured him, older and skeletal, with white hanks of hair over his face like Ellie's, as disillusioned by life, with just as creaky of a voice, hoarse with disuse, a couple of teeth long gone and lost in the dirt along with his spirit.

_Even if I do see him again, he will never be the same person. And neither will I._

_Will I ever see him again? The longer I stay here, the less likely it is I will ever see Harry alive._

Knowing that stung more than Ginny would admit. She hated Tom Riddle for it, 'cause if anyone deserved the blame for it all, it was him.

*

That night Harry had the dream of Snape in the Shrieking Shack again. As usual, Snape discovered him there, behind the crate. Harry was alone.

Snape approached with a slow, measured stride, calculated like one of a predator stalking prey, and grabbed him by the front of his robe, lifting Harry up to his level, staring at him with that fathomless stare.

All time stood still, silence around them swirled absolute, like the eye of a hurricane. Snape's dark eyes were so close to Harry's, focused intently only on him.

Harry knew what's coming by now, Snape had cast an odd spell to make Harry fall into that gaze and keep falling until he drowned in the whirlwind of memories directed at him. But Harry's dream didn't listen to reason. Snape kept staring. Something changed in the tense arch of his brow, in the twist of his lips. His nostrils flared. His fingers, twisting the fabric of Harry's robe twitched, their hold softening. Snape's dark stare was closer, more intense.

On the precipice inside a dream, Harry waited, not even sure what he was waiting for until Snape tilted his head and then sealed his mouth over Harry’s. Harry gasped. Of shock, surely. Of utmost surprise. It was that shocked surprise, a change from the usual horror and dread, that awoke him. He was as hard as a rock.

_Oh, bloody hell! This is not what I meant when I thought I could use a break from all the nightmares._

The heat of sheer embarrassment did nothing to remedy the situation.

_This is not right. He was my teacher for Merlin's sake. He gave me detention! The boring kind, the most boring time I’ve ever spent at Hogwarts. And what's more important, he loved my mum. What's wrong with me?_

_This is all Voldemort's fault. Has to be. It's a distraction,_ Harry told himself. _A bloody useless distraction. Besides, this is only happening 'cause I can't remember anyone else I should have dreams about._

_It's what Voldemort wanted all along. More the reason to forget all about it!_

Harry looked down at himself and sighed. His body, apparently, thought otherwise. _Just perfect._ It was the ultimate irony. He couldn't cast as much as a simple Lumos, but at least one part of him still worked about as expected of a teenage wizard. The most useless part if you asked him.

*

_Whatever happens, I mustn't think of Snape kissing me! In fact, I should avoid him altogether for now. Just don't see him, don't think of him, and all will be just fine._

Unfortunately for Harry, Snape joined him for dinner that evening. Harry sat there at the table across from him, stabbing his fork into the vegetables and wondered silently about an appropriate dinner conversation. _What do you talk about with someone who served Voldemort as the Headmaster of Hogwarts?_ Sure, Harry could ask about all the Death Eater Professors coming to teach here next year. _When are they coming anyway?_

But that title and that responsibility weren't what Snape was all about and Harry knew better than to view him that way. At least that's what his common sense said. There sat a man just across the table with a well-exercised wit and a stubbornness that even Harry's couldn't match. With a mind as inquisitive and sharp as any Ravenclaw's. With magic almost as powerful as Headmaster Dumbledore's. But that wasn't what Harry's awareness focused on, not at all. It was the way Snape's hair fell over his face, the sharp line of his jaw that had been too distracting to even gather his thoughts.

Snape had lifted his fork to his mouth and his lips parted as his teeth closed around a piece of steak.  

Harry gulped.

Snape had chosen that moment to look up at him and his expression turned odd, one of mild surprise.

Harry had done his best to find the cloth napkin on his lap a fascinating target of study. He'd caught himself holding his breath. Thinking of that moment frozen in time, in the eye of the hurricane, as their eyes met and Snape's lips had sealed over his. _Oh no no, stop thinking. I have to stop this._

He shifted his leg carefully under the table and, to his shock, found that his foot had bumped into something. Was it Snape's leg? _Oh no!_ He jolted, moving back, but it must've been the table leg.

"I - um - have a question." Harry had cleared his throat, gathering courage.

Snape's eyebrow lifted. "Well?"

"H-how much do you know about battle tactics?"

Snape tilted his head, tossing his hair back. _R-really,_ his gaze mocked.

_Voldemort's prized tactician. Right. That about says it all._

Harry speared a carrot and chewed it with determination. Life was so much simpler with solitary meals. "So, hypothetically, say someone lost one big battle, how do we - um, they - win the war?"

"'We'?" Snape gave him a meaningful stare. "We are not winning anything soon. What you need to focus on in the foreseeable future is not getting me, or yourself, killed."

Harry sighed. "It's not like I'm plotting to murder you in your sleep!"

"I should hope not. You would be very sorry, should you try."

Where did Snape stay anyway? Harry occupied the large rooms right next to the Headmaster's office, what he assumed had been Dumbledore's private quarters once. If Harry occupied those… where did Snape sleep?

Perhaps the sour git didn't sleep at all, maybe he kept on stalking the dungeons at night, or maybe he hung by his toes from a rafter like a great old bat somewhere. Was it any of Harry's business where Snape spent his nights? No, none whatsoever.

It didn't stop Harry from wondering though.

As the house-elves vanished the cutlery and the plates into thin air, Harry'd walked Snape to the door of the rooms. Snape stood straight and towering, slightly so, because Harry was almost the same height by now, tall enough for them both to bump noses if Harry tilted his just right and… _oh, just don't go there,_ Harry reminded himself sternly. _That's enough of that._

Was it Harry's imagination or was Snape's stare at him somewhat amused. Almost curious. The moment was weighed down by silence. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry could see the surroundings swirling. Snape's mouth was so close, the corners of it twitching. Black greasy hair strands spilling over the sharp corner of Snape's jaw just so.

Harry wanted to reach out… reach for them and push them back.

Anxious, he smoothed back his hair and offered an awkward hand. "Um. Good night," he said.

Snape's smirk said so much more than his ordinary smirks and Snape's hands gently settled over Harry's.

"Good night, Mister Potter."

*

 _I ought to ask the house-elves where Snape sleeps,_ Harry thought to himself. _Sleeping habits reveal a lot about a person. And I must find out everything I can about Snape. All of our lives may depend on it._ So when a house-elf appeared that morning, he turned to it to speak.

"Master Potter, Winky's been told to tell us to keep an eye on you," a house-elf who definitely wasn't Winky said. "And to tell Gimmy that Mister Snape is expected to return shortly."

Harry suspected that whatever Voldemort had done to his memories didn't take the house-elves into consideration, because the images of Winky rose unexpectedly to the surface of his memory now and then, enough for him to remember who she was, at least. It was all terribly unreliable and quite confusing.

"Where is he?" _And…_ "Where's Winky?"

"Day off," the not-Winky squeaked. "The Master says we must have them. Gimmy need to go now. Lots to do without Winky."

"Wait, where'd Snape go?"

The tiny house-elf's ears twitched like a frightened cat's. "The Master has been summoned by his Master." She said it with an odd reverie as if that was something to be proud of.

_Shit._

_*_

At night Ellie ranted, delirious, about measurements and long complicated incantations or enchantments or maybe names or something, in Latin, and Greek. Other nights she called out for her sisters. "Flo," she shouted. "Hessie, run!"

Ginny woke her one morning, trying to keep her focused as she fetched her a drink, leaving most of the pitcher's contents for Ellie instead of taking her share.

"You went to Hogwarts, didn’t you?" Ginny whispered to her. "What was your favourite class?"

Ellie's lips parted in a mirthless grin. "Potions. Can still brew up a storm if you let me. Literally. Granddad was quite the pyromaniac. Taught us to blow up our cauldrons the right way."

 _Ha,_ Ginny thought, _figures. Just goes to show not every potions brewer I know is a right bastard._ "My brothers would have loved you," she said. "Let's get you sitting up. And then you can tell me all about your exploding cauldrons."

"Nothing to tell. See, any cauldron is tough to crack, but if you fill it with the right explosives, none as obvious as say, an Erumpent horn, it packs quite a punch. Even the finest make - boom, and it unfolds like a flower. Pity anyone within the blast radius."

Ginny smiled, thinking of her old cauldron blooming gold and orange, strips of brass laid out like petals, like a multi-point star. Oh, with the price of the school supplies, Mum would have had a fit if anything had happened to that old cauldron, but Ginny pictured the explosion anyway. Voldemort was at the centre of the blast, pierced through and through with shrapnel and finally obliterated to pieces.

_*_

Snape wasn't back for supper. In fact, he wasn't back the next day either. Harry'd worn out the rug in his office pacing. What could he do? Was Snape dead? Were Voldemort's servants coming to collect Harry? Should he run? But that meant Snape would be dead for sure if he wasn't already.

He had to wait then. He hated waiting. He curled up in the corner seat and watched the sunset. The dramatic pink and gold faded behind the towers, painting the edge of the Forbidden Forest with the vivid, pastel hues. The lake was a dark mass of shadows, the creatures dwelling within it not stirring the surface. It was calm and dark as Snape's stare, pulling Harry in under the surface of his thoughts which were anything but calm.

 _Don't die!_ Harry thought desperately. _Just don't die on me, you stubborn bastard. I don't want anyone else dead, not even you._

The sky darkened, sprinkled with the stars. The night breeze had a welcome chill.

Inside, the Headmaster's office was anything but cosy or even particularly welcoming. It was austere and stern, just like its present owner, but Harry didn't mind. There was a raw simplicity in its bare, clean surfaces, in the perfectly arranged books. Even that brewing equipment in the corner had made Harry look at it with longing. _Just come back alive, you greasy git. Live and come back here. To me._

There wasn't much else to do but wait. Harry was terrible at waiting. _Whatever happens,_ he told himself sternly, _I mustn't fall asleep._

He awoke with his cheek to the windowsill, to a rustle in the fireplace as the flames turned green. Snape stumbled through, pale as death, his hair wild, holding onto an injured shoulder.

Harry rushed to his side. "What happened?"

"Potter." Surprise slipped through Snape's hoarse tones.

"Are you hurt? Where?" Harry reached for him, offering support and quickly steered him toward the nearest seat.

Snape waved him off and collapsed into his chair, all breath taken out of him. He sat in silence for quite some time before confessing "The Dark Lord's favour is apparently still fleeting."

"Fleeting? What does that mean? Did he torture you?"

Snape gave him an incredulous stare. There was apparently still fight left in him. "Certainly not. The tea party was a blast." _Why are you asking me stupid questions,_ his stare seemed to say.

"But, you're valuable to him. He said it himself. I heard it."

Snape held his breath, and hissed, as he reached into the desk drawer for a small phial. He up-ended it into his mouth and swallowed.

"Not anymore, as you can see." Anything he might have said next was overcome by a long coughing fit. Harry had taken the phial from him and set it carefully on the edge of the table. If he could still cast spells he'd summon a glass of water. He searched the cabinets. There was an ornate bottle filled with an amber liquid next to a drinking glass behind the see-through door. The door was ajar.

Harry had gestured at it and was faced with Snape's bewildered stare and then a nod. He fetched the drink, pouring a half a glass into it and set it in front of the man.

With the look of someone who'd gone through quite a few bottles in his time, Snape swirled the amber liquid in the glass and took an abrupt sip.

A few seconds passed and Snape appeared a little less like death itself as he continued. "I was valuable while the war lasted. To the Dark Lord, the war is over."

"He's wrong." Harry's lips twisted into a bitter smirk. "It's why he'll lose it."

A sudden bark of laughter coming from Snape seemed to startle them both. "Your stubbornness is your finest feature, Potter," he murmured softly afterwards, meeting Harry's eye with a look that held so much contemplation, Harry didn't quite know what to make of it. Was stubbornness good, in Snape's eyes? Was it bad? _Did Snape actually like it?_

"Well," Harry echoed, slightly encouraged by the fact that some colour had returned to Snape's cheeks and by the keen vigilance in his gaze. He wasn't sure whether the mysterious phial or the booze had done the trick. "Stick around then. You haven’t seen me at my best yet."

 _He's back!_ Harry's heart sang. _He's here and alive and everything's OK! OK for now._

*

Harry stayed with Snape for a while until Snape's eyelids grew heavy and his gaunt features softened.

"Come on," he said, nudging the man toward the door. "You need rest."

Snape complied, which by itself was worrisome. Halfway down the revolving staircase, his features grew slack and his chin drooped down. Cursing himself, Harry drew a cautious arm around Snape, not knowing what to do if Snape collapsed right there and then. He had only one good arm, what would he do if Snape passed out cold and toppled down the staircase? Call the house-elves? And what would they do? It'd take at least a dozen to hold Snape up. Either that or it'd only take one to Levitate the stubborn sod, something Harry was nowadays incapable of doing.

But Snape seemed to hold on, moving unsteadily but surely, and so Harry steered him toward the quarters he was staying in. The closest bed, really, that's all he was after. Snape walked shakily to it and his tall form toppled down before Harry could draw the sheets down for him. His long dark strands spilled across the pillow. His cloak covered the entire bed. With one hand, Harry drew it around him like a blanket.

It was at that moment that a horrible understanding dawned on Harry, the kind that made everything in the world all so wrong but kept his heart beating like a caged bird. _Snape was tortured because Voldemort expected him to have broken me by now, in every possible way. And he did not find what he expected to see, did he? Snape would never admit to it, but that's the truth, has to be._

_Voldemort has tortured him because of me. And Snape waved it off as if it was nothing._

Life was the opposite of fair, as Harry had only begun to comprehend. When it came to Snape, it was unfair more often than not.

At eleven at night, Snape still slept soundly. Harry refused the offers of more food from Gimmy, and then from Winky, who'd returned at midnight. He remained in the chair in the corner of the room, watching Snape all the while, napping on and off before the sky seen through the narrow window frame lightened again with the pre-dawn gloom. Snape snored lightly, and this was the first time Harry could think of that he'd ever seen Snape horizontal, with his feet off the ground. The thought prompted all sort of dirty and devious ideas which made Harry feel like a complete pervert for even allowing his mind to reach that point. _Argh,_ he told himself sternly. _Don't even think about it. Don't even go there. He's injured because of me! Nothing would ever make that all right._

On the next morning, he watched Snape having breakfast, as Winky fussed over him, her large stubby toes digging into the bedspread as she climbed up to offer him a tray with the morning meal. Snape waved her off, sitting up and levitating the tray with a flick of a wand. Harry sipped his own orange juice and watched and waited until Snape had eaten most of his toast.

"So, what made Voldemort do that to you?" Harry asked. "Is this going to happen again?"

Snape shook his head. "One hopes not," he said carefully.

"Oh." Harry sighed. The look on Snape's face promised nothing good. Certainly nothing hopeful.

"We have a problem," Snape looked uneasy.

"What?" Harry blurted out. "What's wrong?"

Snape banished the breakfast tray in one absent-minded wave of his hand and stared off to the side. His fingers flexed over the bedsheets. "A month from now, there'll be a ceremony, a celebration here at Hogwarts. The Dark Lord will be in attendance."

 _The Dark Lord strolling through the place he spent much effort taking over. What could possibly go wrong?_ "What is he after? Another game of storm the castle?" Harry spat bitterly. "Didn't fulfil his murder quota the first time around?"

"It's more than that. In addition to hosting the ceremony, I am expected to parade my _toy_ , and the sign of the Dark Lord's favour," Snape's stare rose meaningfully to meet Harry's eye, "in front of all the jubilant crowds."

 _Parade who? Oh, me. Of course! Voldemort would want that. Sadistic prick._ Harry gulped, nodding. "So it's a show he's after?"

"Not just a show." Snape's tone grew sombre. "The Dark Lord _will_ use Legilimency on you. And if he doesn't find a certain level of intimacy between you and me..."

 _Snape actually said 'intimacy'. Between us! Ha! Wait, what?_ Harry felt his face grow hot, but at the same time, his stomach churned at the thought of certain moments in Harry's life taken and twisted like that. The moments that weren't for Voldemort to have, weren't for anyone to have but Harry alone. Precious, intimate moments, like Snape leaning in and dream-kissing him amid the eye of the raging storm of emotions Harry didn't even begin to comprehend yet. "You mean... that pervert isn't tired of raping and pillaging and wants the full account of you doing it?"

Snape's lips twisted into a thin curve. "Yes. Essentially."

"Well, fuck!"

Snape's eyebrow arched up. Harry was growing quite fond of its sharp arch. It meant amusement, or sometimes a challenge. "That's precisely the issue at hand."

"OK, fine. All right, we can deal with this." Harry ran his hand through his hair. "We can even fight fire with fire." _Memories can be changed, can't they? Obliviators do it. The Ministry does it to Muggles and I might as well be one. So why can't we try the same? Why can't Snape change my memories?_ "How much of my memories can you alter if you have to?"

Snape's lips thinned as he considered. "To the unsuspecting onlooker? A believable amount. I have not been discovered yet. However, I cannot create an account of our encounter from nothing. There will need to be something to serve as a base so your idea, prudent as it is, is not an option."

"Why not?" _You're already in my bed,_ danced on the tip of Harry's tongue. Harry faced Snape. Greasy git. Sarcastic sod. Sadistic prick. Hair in his face, the stare that was far too casual to be true. Snape was actually nervous, there was no other explanation.

Harry thought of Snape from his dreams, the dreams that ended with Snape kissing him. He was trapped in the eye of the hurricane all over again, fighting to keep his eyes on Snape, to keep looking at him and not drown. He thought of Snape kissing him in a dream and of the shocking discovery that he liked the idea. And then he had summoned all his courage to admit the simple truth to the exact person he wanted to keep this private from. "I'll want it."

Snape blinked. It was clearly in surprise. Harry had managed to surprise him. _Wow._

Harry swallowed, his throat suddenly tight with tension. "Unless… that is, you don't.."

Snape's tone was so very soft. So quiet, Harry had to lean forward to hear it. "Go on…"

"One thing though. I won't be a toy that Voldemort wants to see. That's probably the bits you must alter when you're going over them in my head."

Snape's eyebrows drew together. It's as if he wasn't comprehending what Harry told him and needed explaining further. "Potter?"

 _It's as if he was too stubborn to hear what Harry was telling him._ Harry arched his brow and stepped forward. "A month you said? Well, might as well start now. Tomorrow? Is tomorrow good for you?" He was babbling, but that didn't really matter.

"Harry."

"What?" Harry tilted his head, trying to get away from the sudden intimacy of his name on Snape's lips. "Scared?"

"Questioning your sanity. And my own."

"Too late for that." Harry leaned in, drunk on his own daring, and because none of Snape answer sounded like a refusal, drew his hand from Snape's elbow to his shoulder, traced the line of buttons down Snape's front. "Left it somewhere with my wand. And with the rest of my life, I reckon. So, are you gonna sit there or are we going to fight back?"

Snape growled. Really growled. A deep throaty rumble. "Answer me," he demanded, "What do you really expect would happen during this imaginary encounter you plan on having?"

"Er, really? You want to know it _now_?" Harry shrugged. Maybe Snape was having second thoughts and it was all up to Harry to reassure him. "Me, you. Things."

"'Things'?" Such scrutiny gleamed in that stare.

"I won't mind it, if that's what you're asking," Harry rushed to add. "I'll enjoy it a lot, I reckon." He bit his lip. _I shouldn't've said it. I really shouldn't've. I should just stop talking. This is a disaster._ "Um," he continued, despite his better judgement. "Good chance of it being brilliant if you're just being yourself."

"'Myself'," Snape repeated unhelpfully. "And what is it you see me as?"

Harry grinned. There was something about Snape's daring stare that fed his courage. A challenge glimmered in the corner of Snape's eye and he took it. "You're a right prick. Well, you are. But you're not evil, not like some. You've got a way with insults, always have, I reckon. You're a talented wizard. Very much so. And your stare's… it's…"

"It's what?" Snape's fingers closed over Harry's hand, and he did his best to demonstrate said stare, the bastard. Wonderful, sadistic bastard.

_Mesmerising. Captivating. Scary how much it strips away all words and leaves everything bare. And raw. And true._

"It's not something anyone would forget in a hurry. Or at all."

"I've just told you the Dark Lord expected to see me break you in every possible way." Snape's eyes narrowed as he watched Harry from under the shadow of his eyelashes. "Never thought I'd find you, of all people, trying to flirt through it."

"Well, did it work?" slipped from Harry's tongue before he gave it another thought.

Snape's lips twitched. "Abysmal effort. See that you improve."

Harry couldn't help but grin.

"And Potter..."

"Yes?"

There was a long pause, during which Harry'd felt his heart beating faster.

"Seven o'clock. Tomorrow. My office."

It was so nonchalant, Harry didn't process it at first. And as he did, his eyes widened, at the thought of what was offered. Of what was expected of him.

"You have a day to give it your best effort at rational thought and _not_ show up."

_Is he trying to convince me to back out of something? Ha, good luck with that!_

Harry flashed Snape a bold smile. "It's a date," he blurted before he could think it through.

Snape's answering look was _so_ worth it.

*

That evening, Snape once again had surrendered the quarters next to his office to Harry, excusing himself and disappearing from sight. Harry had circled the room like a cornered cat and finally settled at the table, unrolling the parchment he had scribbled a list of names on, not so long ago.

_'Lily.'_

He stared at his own clumsy handwriting and thought of the silver doe's ghostly light dying in the gloom of the Headmaster's office. Of 'always' on Snape's lips. So many questions lingered in his mind, of the dead-serious variety. The kind he could no longer ignore in the privacy of the empty room.

_What am I doing?_

_Am_ I _taking advantage of_ him _?_

_Will he ever forgive me?_

_Will I ever forgive myself?_

Harry didn't voice them, and he didn't put them down on paper. He traced his mother's name scribbled over the parchment and thought of the greed on the young boy's face as he watched a girl flying off the swing. Of the desperation with which Snape had clung to a piece of paper with her signature. Of the teary view when the traces of the silver doe had died down. If what Snape had shown Harry to gain his trust was true then...

_He shares none of that with me. What right do I have to do this with him? To him?_

And then Harry thought of Dobby's small headstone, of crawling past the house-elf corpses in the entrance hall, of the curse Lucius Malfoy had hurled toward Ron and the glimpse of Ron's red hair, desaturated in the flash of green, as he fell.

_I don't have a choice. I have to live. I have to keep my head down, and then I have to kill Voldemort._

_I hope one day I can tell him how sorry I am. For how it has to be. For the things we have had to do. To survive. To fight Voldemort._

It was foolish to be afraid of tomorrow, any fellow Gryffindor would tell him that, but Harry couldn't help it. For the first time in a while, Harry was terrified of what's to come. Of not having a good portion of his memories to rely on. Of making the worst choice and not even realising he'd made it.

 _I'm making it into more than it is,_ he argued with himself. _We have to do this. So we are doing it, but our way._

And yet, Harry still worried about making a mockery of the memories Snape held so dear, of irreparably hurting someone so intensely loyal to one person even in death, someone who didn't deserve to be hurt, and that grinding concern was as present as a phantom itch in the numb fingers of his wand hand.

_What kind of person would that make Harry? What kind of person would he become at the end of all this? Would he be able to live with himself then?_

*

'Six fifty-five', said the clock. And Harry had no other excuse to linger in the corridor. He could feel the sweat on his palms.

"Er, hello," he told the snake at the entrance to the Headmaster's office. "Memento mori."

"Proceed," she yawned, shifting her coils. The forked tongue tasted the air. "The Headmaster awaitss."

Harry stepped inside and gripped the railing as the revolving staircase took him up.

It was so agonisingly slow to rotate; it definitely felt longer than two minutes. _C'mon! I can't be late to this,_ he thought frantically, wondering whether to run up the three turns of stairs and to knock on the office door. _I can't!_

Instead, he ran an unsteady hand through his hair and buttoned up his shirt. He adjusted his glasses and stood there, knowing just how unpolished his boots really were, how smudged his lenses had been, counting every wrinkle of his trousers and every speck of dust on his robe.

The door to Snape's office opened without him turning the handle.

"Enter," Snape's deep voice sounded from somewhere within.

Harry took a deep breath and, _here it goes,_ stepped in.

Cloth hung over all the portraits on the far wall, shielding Harry from their curiosity. The door closed silently behind him with a faint breeze at his back as if shutting out the rest of the world. Harry didn't mind that at all. Not a bit. What became of the world wasn't something he was fond of existing in.

In fact, it would have been nice to imagine, just for one evening, a world without war or death. A world without Voldemort. A world without Snape being forced to make terrible choices in Voldemort's name. A world with Harry having a wild fling with someone he cared about, in a place with foundations unshaken by magical curses, unsoiled by the blood of the dead.

And yet, here they stood. And here Snape stood, clothed from head to toe in his usual black robe as if in perpetual mourning, his long hair casting a deep shadow over his profile.

"I'm here," Harry said awkwardly, stating the obvious 'cause he wanted to make sure Snape knew: he chose this. Knowingly. Willingly. Rationally. Every step he took from the room he was staying in and toward Snape's office. He had thought of it all day and when the time had come, made his choice, for better or worse.

The clock on the wall struck seven. Their eyes met.

Snape's lips parted. "You have to trust that it's my job to keep you safe," he said. "I don't wish you harm. Nor will I be forced into anything unnegotiated. I need you to know, the moment you're uncertain, you must tell me to end this."

Harry gulped. He felt an odd sting in his throat, butterflies in his stomach. "I'm sure." He nodded. "I want this." He took two deep breaths and raised his eyes at Snape, peered at that expressionless stare. "Are _you_ sure?"

"I…" There was an odd hitch of breath. A tilt of his head that reminded Harry of a much younger Severus Snape. Snape nodded, not breaking eye contact. His stare burned.

"OK, then," Harry said. "Whew, now that's out of the way. Let the fun begin, I reckon. No time like the present, right?"

Snape released a deep, knowing sigh. "How do you feel?"

Harry blinked. He hadn't expected that question. His mouth was dry, his robes starchy and hot, although the fireplace coals barely burned. "Scared," he admitted without meaning to, under that dark, scrutinising look. "Not _scared_ scared. Scared to mess it up."

"Understandable." Snape's lips curved into a smirk. "Only fools are fearless. And neither of us is a fool. Don't you agree?"

Harry nodded. He was afraid, but it was OK. In fact, it made things OK in Snape's eyes, odd as it was. He didn't know why he was so scared. Surely not because he'd may have to bare his body. The Quidditch changing rooms had cured him of such shyness long ago, and he wasn't scared that it was Snape seeing him in such an intimate way. Snape had seen the inside of Harry's mind before and that was far more of a frightening concept than standing in front of him stark-naked. But still, for some odd reason, Harry shook with the absolute fear of baring his heart open and of Snape seeing inside of that, seeing it all and knowing Harry wasn't indifferent, far from it. That profound awe toward Snape, that sense of protectiveness when it came to Harry's intentions toward him, that odd sense of admiration was only Harry's to keep and that was his and private and not for Snape to know. Not yet. Not today, at least.

"Well, this is awkward," Harry confessed because although he was fully clothed, he couldn't help but feel stark-naked and on display. To think of it, Snape's stare always made him feel that sort of scrutiny. "You give me that look and it's like I haven't got a stitch on. Like you know what I'm thinking, and more."

There it was, the concern on Snape's face, plain as day. "I am not using Legilimency."  
  
"You don't have to. It still feels like that." Harry swallowed. "You stare like you know me. It's… no one else ever does it like you do. Like… no, you don't have to look away, please!"

Snape's eyes were back on Harry, with that warm, cautious scrutiny. "Do you want someone to know you?" Snape breathed.

"Doesn't matter, 'cause it's you. You know me already."

They were in the Headmaster's office, it struck Harry. The ultimate impossibility for nighttime trysts at Hogwarts. And the most powerful wizard, the Dark Lord's right hand, stood in front of Harry with all the magic of Hogwarts at his disposal, and Harry, without magic, was as helpless as a kneazle in front of a Norwegian Ridgeback in the face of all that. Only that wasn't true. Just one look at Snape's face was enough to know Harry controlled this, whatever it was, just as much as Snape did.

The knowledge was heady, intoxicating.

"Since I'm already feeling naked, um, wanna undress to even the odds?" he said giving Snape's belt a playful tug with a shaky hand. It wasn't completely a joke. A challenge perhaps. Because if Snape was anything like Harry, a good proper challenge conquered any lingering fears.

Snape's smirk widened. "So eager to get it over with, are you?" he purred.

"No, actually." Harry arched his eyebrow. "Well, go on."

Surprisingly, Snape complied, raising his hands to his chest and first, shedding his cloak like a snake sheds its skin. His coat was next, and he made a show out of every button. Harry stared, mesmerised. On the third button, he realised he was holding his breath.

_He's doing this, he's actually doing it. Wow._

Snape's hair hung low over his face. Harry wanted to reach out to push it back but didn't dare to break Snape's privacy in such a way just yet.

"So, since we're um, making memories together, want to tell me what you like?"

Snape's stare met his, and a snort escaped him. "Are you flirting again?"

"So what if I am?"

"Is this the best you can come up with?"

Harry stepped up and lifted his hands to Snape. It was difficult to get a hold of someone with one good hand. "What else am I supposed to say? Oh, come and stir my cauldron?" he parried, in a sing-song voice, a parody of someone he no longer remembered. He knew how his voice would sound if he sang it and that's all he had as a point of reference and then his mind moved on as if on cue to ponder his own terrible taste in jokes.

_Bloody hell, I shouldn't ever try to joke when I'm nervous._

"One thing is clear. You mustn't serenade anyone. Ever again," Snape grumbled. "If you know what's good for you." The coat was off now, just a white cotton shirt. Snape's sleeves were loose around his pale wrists. The Mark moved like an ink stain over his arm. On the opposite arm, at the wrist, a network of blue veins pointed up like an arrow. Harry lifted the unmarked arm up to his face and pressed his cheek against it. Snape's hand was warm, as his fingers combed through Harry's hair.

"For the record, I disliked you once," Snape said in a no-nonsense voice. "You are an impossible brat. Uncomparable to your mother."

"M' not trying to be her." Harry turned his head until his mouth was on Snape's wrist and parted his lips. He sucked in the tender skin and then bit down, nipping. Was it his imagination or did he hear Snape hold his breath? _Good._

"I never imagined you were." The shirt was off now and the sight was captivating. Harry focused on that dark trail of hair leading down from Snape's belly button to his crotch. His trousers hung low on his hips, his belt freed from the belt loops coiled like a sleeping snake in Harry's hand.

Snape toed off his boots and socks and it was odd to see his bare feet, large and pale, paler than his sallow palms. "Is this what you had in mind?" he asked Harry, his voice just a few notes too low to be casual. It sent all of Harry's blood racing south. He gripped Snape's belt in his good hand and then gulped and nodded, trying to do both things at once, keep his eyes off Snape's crotch and look his fill.

The view was surreal. Snape was undressing before him. Snape! And it was the most mesmerising sight Harry could ever imagine. Not to be outdone, Harry released the belt, yanked his robe off and dropped it where he stood. He fought to unbutton his shirt, starting at his collar.

"You never give up," Snape admitted, almost reverent, tracing the line of Harry's jaw with his fingertips then lowering his hands to assist Harry's battle with buttons. "It's as though you don't know how. It's an admirable quality."

Harry's skin tingled in the most peculiar way where Snape's hand had traced in a jagged line. "Oh?" he said, and it was such a warm, blissful reverie to shed his shirt, to step up into Snape's arms and feel Snape's fingers trace down his spine, resting carefully over the curve of his lower back.

It was so tempting to try something else. Harry stood up on his tiptoes and tried to reach up to press his lips to Snape's so he could finally know how kissing him was like...

Snape pulled back. "Ah," he breathed. "Hear me out first."

Harry moaned. The skin of Snape's bare shoulders and chest resonated warmth. He'd wondered how it'd feel under his fingertips, against his lips. A thumb was tracing circles over his lower back, and it was making it far too difficult to concentrate.

"This is strictly a practical agreement. A contract if you will. Steps to be completed in a certain order to form a base for the memory. It will happen like this: I will count to three, and then I will push you backwards, walking us up against my desk and lifting you onto it. I will move my hands over your thighs, spreading them. You will need to brace yourself against me and you will need to hold yourself up." Snape's voice was so casual as if he was listing ingredients for the next potion Harry had to brew, but his stare burned and his voice, that unforgettable voice, slow and steady, drove Harry wild. "Can you do that?"

"Yeah," Harry breathed. Snape's heated words set him on fire, syllable by syllable, without actually trying. He barely stopped himself from grinding against Snape's solid thigh.

Snape was seeking something in Harry's eyes, intent and cautious. "What was that?"

"Yes," Harry said, hating himself for sounding so desperate.

"Your legs will be spread open and your fly - undone. I will cast a spell that will strip you of your shirt and trousers and I will push you down across the desk surface. It will be sudden and I'll use strength."

"Go on," Harry gasped, anticipating. Wondering just how strong those fingers can be. Snape had had Harry in a steely grip once, dragging him down the staircase. Is that what he meant? That didn't sound bad at all though, not at the moment. It sounded like Snape couldn't do it soon enough.

"Your knees will be pinned down along with your left hand. I will then put my mouth over your shoulder, your ribs, and your...."

"Not my shoulder. My neck," Harry interrupted, feeling that telltale heat on his face. "Off to the side." _Right where it's most sensitive._

Snape's eyebrow arched. "The side of your neck," he repeated. "Your ribs. And on the inside of your thigh. As you will try to struggle…"

"Why would I?" Harry breathed, confused. His trousers grew tight and hot. "You can hold me down, but doubt I'll struggle over that." His mouth parted in a smile. "Unless you bite me."

"Fine. A bite. And as you _will_ try to struggle," Snape repeated, with the infinite patience of a Hogwarts Professor, "A spell will bind your wrists over your head. The bonds will not be strong. I will lift your knees up to your chest and will thrust against you twice… Is that acceptable, Potter?"

"Guh," said Harry, and leaned his head forward against Snape's shoulder and just breathed in the scent of what had to be sweat and arousal, mutual. His glasses were fogging over.

As he lifted his head up, Snape gave him a very cross look. "Do try your best to look alarmed, not besotted."

Harry snorted. _Good luck with that,_ he wanted to say. "'Besotted'? Come on!" he protested weakly.

Snape hmphed. "My mistake, I meant, uncharacteristically eager as well as smitten. Shall we?"

"Hey!"

Snape arched his eyebrow.

"One," Snape counted. "Two…"

Harry held his breath. He saw himself on that desk in detail before Snape even murmured 'three' and tipped him down. Things seemed to happen in slow motion.

The desk was cool and hard against Harry's back, a stark contrast to Snape's steel-like sudden grip, all heat, parting his legs open.

Harry inhaled sharply and thrust forward, against that leg spreading his thighs apart. Did that count as struggling? Well, it had to. It was the best he could do.

By the time Snape's mouth pressed against the side of his neck, he could barely breathe, panting.

 _He said he'll bite. He didn't say where. My ribs or my thigh? Oh wow._ With that realisation, he was writhing, right against the polished surface, right against Snape's tight hold on him, in anticipation of that hot mouth descending over his body, of teeth sinking in. He didn't know what he wanted more at that moment.

He didn't want Snape to stop. Not after all this.

Hot breath warmed the skin at his side. Harry stilled.

Snape's lips seemed far too soft at the ticklish touch to his ribs. There was a sound escaping Harry's throat that seemed alien. It couldn't've possibly come from him. He arched up. Needing something, anything.

"Snape. Do it."

He didn't know what he was asking for, he just knew he was pinned down and gasping for it harder than he'd ever been and Snape's hands were playing him like an instrument and he never wanted them to stop.

Snape's mouth moved across his chest, the tips of his long hair still ticklish against Harry's side. Harry could barely breathe. His thighs parted on their own accord. His underwear was too tight and damp over his erection and he tried his best to keep still, to keep from thrusting.

_He'll bite next, he's about to… ohgod._

There was the softest touch of Snape's lips against his inner thigh, and then Snape's lips parted and he leaned in, closing his mouth over the tender patch of skin and sucking in the sensitive flesh, his teeth hard and sharp against it, his chin abrasive against Harry's thigh.

Harry shouted then, writhing. Wishing against any hope that Snape would move his mouth just a few inches up over his straining cock, what wouldn't he give for Snape's hand pressing there, or better yet, for Snape's terrible, brilliant mouth to go off script and do exactly what Harry'd needed him to do so much.

Snape lifted his head, his intent stare meeting Harry's. "Incarcerous," Snape murmured and Harry felt at least one of his wrists bound, pushed up over his head, his numb hand pushed between the weight of his other arm and the flat surface of the desk.

Harry thrust up, not caring about what they were supposed to be doing, writhing madly under Snape's grasp. There was a weight on him and his knees were lifted up to the level of his chest as he was bent double and there was Snape's erection against his bare thigh _ohyes._ He panted, delirious, struggling against the magical ropes, turning and wrapping his legs around Snape, opening his body to him and exhaling something incoherent and needy like _Ohgod, yes! Severus!_

Snape stilled over him, with what seemed like iron-strong control. He leaned back and his stare burned like coals. Like a black flame.

The ropes around Harry's wrists slithered away into nothing.

"That's enough, Potter," Snape breathed, his pupils wide, his hair in disarray. It looked as though it took all of Snape's control to keep from backing away completely or to keep from leaning forward and resuming his thrusts. His hands were placed on the table on both sides of Harry's hips, knuckles white with tension. Surprise blazed in his eyes, had to be. Couldn't be anything but that.

"Quite enough."

 _No, nononono,_ just a few more seconds! Harry stilled on that desk, face hot, skin sweaty and burning from the lack of contact. He was all of two seconds away from coming and he knew, he knew for certain that the bloody teasing sod would’ve come too, had Harry been given the chance to move against him for just a little while longer.

"I really hate you sometimes," he panted.

"Only sometimes?" Snape exhaled a shaky breath. His eyes bore into Harry's as if deciding something significant. And then his hand, that terrible, wonderful hand, had pulled down Harry's underwear and slid right over Harry's cock, gripping, an upstroke lasting an eternity of torturous pleasure.

"Regardless of your feelings for me," Snape's voice filled Harry's ear, took over his entire awareness, everything else fading far away but Snape's touch, Snape's words spilling slowly as treacle. "You will keep your hand off mine, yes, flat on the table, good, Harry. I am going to move my hand, over your cock, just so. Much, much harder, and faster than what I'm doing now. And at one point I will count to three. And only then will you come. Can you do that?"

Harry could barely comprehend what Snape was after only that he'd do anything, anything to keep hearing that wonderful voice. His fingers curled against the flat, polished wood of the desk.

Snape's grip on him hardened, hot and hurried. "One."

Harry released a frantic breath, trying to slow down that peak of pleasure from overwhelming him. Struggling hard to hold off what he knew was inevitable.

"Two..." Snape's grip was so strong, so right.

"Yesss!" Harry cried out, his body folding in on itself. Surrendering his whole self to the heat, the pressure, the moment. To that hand pressed flat then grasping Harry, flesh against heated flesh. "Ahh!" He was coming then, he had to, there was no other way, as his good hand grasped Snape's by the wrist and pressed it down around his cock, as his entire being sought contact. Everything he could get.

The world went white.

Afterwards, they stared at one another. Harry squinted, his glasses were all askew. He knew Snape wasn't reading his mind and yet it seemed he knew every embarrassing thought Harry'd had of him.

"Um, three?" Harry panted, apologetic. It was hard to seem apologetic when he felt his body melt in post-orgasmic bliss. He could barely hold himself up.

Snape exhaled his amusement. "I see your skill at following directions hasn't improved since your time at Hogwarts," he countered, and there was no bite to the remark. His hands were on Harry, far more gentle than his words ever were.

After a few moments, Snape pulled away from him, collecting his cloak. His pupils were wide still. His stare, unsettled. "That's enough for today," he announced. "Go."

A flick of a wand, and Harry's clothes folded into a bundle and hit him square in the middle of his chest.

"Go, Potter!"

Harry held onto the cloth bundle with one hand, unsure whether to sprint right now or… it would be hard to explain to the snake at the entrance why he was missing his robe and had a spring in his step.

He dressed hastily on the way down, struggling to button his shirt with one working hand and finally just pulling it shut at the collar.

He left quietly, not wanting the giant snake to glare at him with those emerald eyes and catch him this late and in such a state. It was bad enough that the portraits in Snape's office heard their fill.

"Never thought you'd be fond of ssudden exits," the snake lifted its heavy eyelids over the giant gemstones and hissed just as he was sure she was asleep.

Harry jumped, feeling the heat rising in his cheeks. He'd hoped that his hair wasn't wild enough to notice and adjusted his robe around his shoulders, pulling it closed around him.

The stone guardian stuck out her forked silver tongue, tasting the air.

"Such scandalous tryst, sso late. Not even a farewell kiss on the sstairs?"

"Er," Harry said, wishing for the floor to open up and swallow him already. "It's not what it looks like. Really!"

"I ssuspect that he bites," the snake said, with the smuggest tone in her voice. "He seems the type. Was it good?"

Harry spun on his heels and ran off, not willing to put up with another moment of questioning as his ears burned.

His ears were still burning later, after he had a chance to think of the encounter, all over again.

 _Wow, just wow,_ Harry thought reclining against the pillows in his large solitary bed that evening, still gripping his cock, having come the second time with the image of Snape's heated stare on him, with the sound of Snape's frantic whisper in his ears describing all the amazing things they hadn't done yet. _That was incredible._ _We have to do it again. How soon can we do it?_

_Tomorrow? I don't want him to think I'm too eager. OK, maybe the day after. Would that be too forward of me? We are doing this to save the world, so it's important not to delay things too much…_

_Oh, what am I thinking!_

He threw himself back against the pillows and groaned.

_This is mental. If only Snape could hear me now. I wouldn't blame him for laughing himself stupid. This kind of thing needs self-restraint. Just like Snape said, 'patience'._

_… two days from now then. Definitely two._

*

At night, Harry pictured Snape and himself in the Shrieking Shack once more. Snape's intense steady gaze on him, a long lasting moment of panic, as he approached, as he grasped Harry by his robe and lifted him up, maintaining eye contact all along. Harry thought of the warmth of his breath as Snape leaned in to kiss him.

Harry didn't fight the thought of that kiss now. In fact, the kiss continued: ravishing and insatiable, with Snape consuming him like one would a drink. Harry gave back as much as he could, as he would in a duel. He slid his arms along Snape's body and then Snape put his hand on Harry's shoulder and nudged him down with the obvious intent.

Harry gasped and obeyed because the thought of himself kneeling and being led with Snape's gentle hand was a rather welcome one. It felt liberating not to think for just a while longer, to comply as instructed by someone who, Harry believed, had his best interest at heart. Someone who looked threatening enough to harm Harry but did just the opposite, all along. And here was Harry's chance to prove to Snape that he trusted him. Trusted him enough for something as intimate as seeing him kneel in arousal, Harry's mouth inches away from the outline of Snape's erection.

So vivid the image of them both was in Harry's mind, that his imagination filled in every detail, to the hitch in Snape's breath to the warmth of his fingertips against Harry's cheek.

_Argh!_

He ran his hands through his hair, and stared at the ceiling of the dark room, his face flushed, his heart beating wildly.

_A new low, even for me. It can't be normal to want this kind of thing! I bet no one ever walked around Hogwarts thinking: wish Snape would let me blow him in the Shrieking Shack. Or in his office. Or anywhere at all._

_What is_ wrong _with me?_

Why couldn't Harry be like everyone else? It was perfectly reasonable to notice that Cedric Diggory's lips looked so soft as he leaned toward Harry's ear, or that Oliver Wood was very fit in that uniform, poised over the upthrust broomstick. It was even reasonable to admit the flutter that the Half-Blood Prince's darkly humorous remarks had left in Harry's chest. Nothing special there. Anyone would understand where he was coming from. Even Ron might have. In fact, Harry was certain he'd list twice as many names as he did had his memories been intact. But this? This was not your average wet dream about the Quidditch changing rooms or the mysterious textbook owner who saw it fit to scribble out instructions of pure genius. Instructions that Harry was only happy to follow. _Oh, bloody hell. What did that even mean? When was he ever this eager to follow anyone's instructions? Especially Snape's._

He stared down at the tented covers and then shifted awkwardly, and, to give his hand something to do other than reach for the obvious, punched his pillow with sheer-minded, futile stubbornness until it lay flat.

*

 _Shit!_ Ginny thought as she was dragged through the corridors upwards. _They are letting everyone out, what's going on?_ The number of prisoners around her grew. Must be all the new arrivals. Please don't let it be a public hanging, not again! Their last victims hadn't deserved to die like that.

She counted the stairs and the turns to the staircases, having memorised at least half of the counts correctly, and thus considering herself an old-timer among them now, like Ellie.

Ellie was too weak to leave their cell.

Ginny'd tried to help her up to her feet, but one guard had sent a mean Stinging Jinx her direction the moment she’d done so. "Leave her," the guards had commanded as Ginny backed away.

It was during her walk in the castle yard that Ginny saw Hermione again. Hermione was dressed in a plain robe, with an awful snake around her neck, the kind Ginny saw others wearing as they were taken from the cells, never to return. She always thought the snake wearers were the ones that had broken down, resigned to their fate of obedience, submitting always their new masters: no better than a house-elf. Ginny may have been locked up, but she still knew how to resist. Those who accepted the serpentine collars had no fight left in them, not with those fangs sinking in at the first glimpse of resistance, of anger. Of anything human.

Ginny thought she'd rather die than wear that awful thing. But here Hermione was. Apparently obeying.

Ginny stumbled, out of the view of the guards and crept closer. Making sure no one was watching, she took a step toward Hermione and lunged, reaching her hand.

Hermione's brown eyes widened and her arms came around Ginny. For a moment they didn't speak and then Hermione's frantic gaze settled on her, impatient, caring hands running over Ginny's thinner, dirtier form. "Are you OK?"

Ginny didn't know what to say. She merely stared, unable even to shake her head 'no', everything was wrong. Where would she even start?

"Is there anything I can do?"

 _I need to get out,_ Ginny thought. _We all need to get out._ But what can Hermione do about that, with that snake around her neck, fangs always at the ready.

She shook her head defiantly. "My cellmate, Ellie, is not well. Lung infection. The guards aren't doing a bloody thing for her."

Hermione nodded. "Medicine?"

"Yeah, if you can."

"I'll be back," Hermione assured her. "I have to go, but I'll be back for you."

Ginny didn't hold out much hope of that, but at least she tried.

Later, much later, Ginny sat at Ellie's still side and patted her shoulder. Ellie didn't stir, and she had that awful grating sound as she breathed.

"My friend's alive," Ginny said. "The one I told you about. She came."

Ginny thought of Hermione's mournful parting words, of the worry in them.

"Harry lives but…"

"Nonny," Ellie breathed suddenly, and it made no sense at all.

Ginny leaned close, pulling the thin sheet over Ellie's shivering form. "What?"

"My house-elf. Your friend should find her. She knows… has supplies… a-after I'm gone."

"Don't!" Ginny interrupted. "Don't you talk like that! No one is dying on my watch."

Ellie wheezed. "Lucky… me…" she breathed, between coughs.

"I mean it!" Ginny wrapped the thin blanket tighter around her and held on, trying to keep the body warmth in as much as possible in the freezing cell. Ellie was too weak to resist.

"Ingredients," Ellie listed. "Rare. In good hands, as good as a thousand bombs. Blow the hole right out of this bloody dungeon. Pity I won't see..."

"Hush," Ginny grumbled. "We'll get them together. Just hold on, OK? A little longer."

 _Come on, Hermione._ Ginny thought desperately, counting every ragged breath Ellie took. _Just hurry._

*

Never the one to let his fears fester, Harry reminded himself firmly the next morning that his nighttime worries were all sheer bloody nonsense. Besides, this wasn't some meaningless fling, it was all for the greater good. They both knew it. Everything they were doing was to save the world and to kill Voldemort. One day.

"So, when are we doing this again?" Harry said to Snape that afternoon, questioning his good sense no more than usual. "Today maybe? Or tomorrow... tomorrow's good too."

Snape was lifting a cup of tea to his mouth, it stilled mid-way. Snape's brow arched.

"Well, I figure, we can't be sure one memory will be enough," Harry reasoned. "Right? It's best if we try a few times." He felt like he kept talking himself into a corner. But he squashed down the remaining scrap of common sense he had left and kept on going. The pang of daring rushed through him and gave him the strength to continue. _So he likes planning things out, huh? Well then. If Snape can play this game, so can I._ "Here, maybe. Or… say, in the Library. Right between the bookshelves, so you'll have somewhere to lean against," Harry continued, keeping his voice low and even. "I'll be on my knees…" Harry's chest felt full to the point of bursting as if the air in his lungs was too heavy to breathe with. His heart kept beating so fast, he had to swallow, gulping for air, just to contain the jitter in his knees and his hand. "And my robe would be off and you'll unbutton your coat and your trousers, and you'll do that spell for my wrists, so they're tied behind my back. And you'll put your hand over my head and hold me down, but only if you want to, that is..."

Snape spluttered. "That's _quite_ the imagination!"

"Um," said Harry. "Just wanted something believable and this, well, if I was reading my own mind, I'd definitely believe that."

Snape's smirk widened, perhaps even in approval, but mostly in amusement. "Such a specific scenario, Potter. I can tell you thought long and hard about it."

"Just being thorough," Harry said. "You never know. Anything might be important."

"If you'd paid half as much attention to your curriculum…" Snape released a mock sigh letting that sentence trail off to an obvious conclusion of dark eyes rolled in a showy gesture. "Oh very well. The Library."

"All right!" Harry beamed cautiously. "So, I'm free anytime, how about seven?"

Snape's lips thinned. "Seven could work." Snape had pretended to give it more thought, and then his smirk widened. "Three days from now."

"Three!" Harry cried out.

"Should be enough time to contemplate the wisdom of flirting with danger, Mister Potter. Besides, you do seem unusually fond of that number."

Harry felt the heat rising to his cheeks. "Er. Just seems like an awfully long time to wait." Three was a perfectly good number unless it counted the days.

"Do not be late," Snape's mouth twisted into a smirk. "Or should I say early?"

"I hate you," Harry groaned. "I really do. You're impossible."

"Entirely mutual, I assure you."

*

The visitor waiting in Snape's office seemed familiar somehow. Harry searched his memory as to why, but could only come up with an echoing emptiness of a library shelf free of any books. They struck up a conversation, with Harry asking her what brought her here.

"So, you're saying, you're with the Malfoys. I guess I can see how that can be a jarring change." Harry rambled, slightly more cheerful than usual at the thought of the Library and Snape's gentle teasing. It worked like a charm too, all Snape had to do was suggest something in that low tone of voice and all of Harry's blood would go rushing south. Far away from his brain. "They want a baby, right?" He remembered Snape's cryptic comments in a conversation a while back. "Do you like kids?"

The woman who introduced herself to him as Hermione looked displeased and horrified at once.

"Don't worry." He was happy to talk to anyone who wasn't a house-elf. Snape didn't count. "It's not like I'll tell anyone. Though what else can it be?"

"What indeed." She snapped, she didn't sound like a servant. Her eyes grew from utter dread to cold, and her expression turned blank. "God, Harry, sometimes you can be absolutely blind."

Her lips looked bitten and so did her nails. She turned and then looked up at him with a look of a disappointed parent. She looked like she wanted to shake him.

"Do you remember anything?” she asked. “Anything? Ron?"

 _Ron!_ "I remember. How do you know?"

"How do I... " she choked. "Nevermind. Ginny knows about you."

 _Ginny…_ Harry's mind skipped over a sunny space, like a wide-open Quidditch Pitch the morning before the game, and then his thoughts raced onwards. "I'm supposed to know her... That's a yes, innit?"

"She's with the Lestranges. Alive. We're all just trying to stay alive. It's not working well."

Harry felt he was holding this conversation while missing half of the context.

"Every day there's a new law, and it is… the new depth of depravity. Muggleborn or not, any witch is in danger." She stopped and tensed and grew very still as the silver snake on her neck moved and tightened its hold, nearly sinking in its fangs. Hermione stilled and her gaze grew out of focus and distant, even as her pupils enlarged. She kept looking past Harry, far, far away, and her breathing was so calm and measured. _Shouldn't she be distraught right about now?_ Everything about her reaction was a contradiction. How could she sound so calm when, according to her, things were so horrible?

Harry remembered that necklace and now he hated the horrible sight. It seemed so foreign to its wearer who remained so calm, so still. "Why do you wear that?" Harry asked. "Can't be comfortable."

He mentally kicked himself to saying it as soon as he asked.

Her gaze shifted onto him, and her eyes were sad and horrified at the same time. Her breathing remained calm: there was perhaps a bare hitch in her breathing, like a punctuation mark out of place. "I had to put it on," she said plainly. There was a small package in her hand which she placed under her cloak. Snape must've given her something to take to the Malfoys. "I... need to go. Goodbye, H-harry."

That evening, Harry sought Snape for something other than a negotiated tryst. He had to sort out this mystery. So much detail of it has already faded from his memory, but he held onto the important question, mulling it over and rephrasing it until he could focus his mind on it alone without his thoughts scattering wild into a distracted race. "Someone told me the new law was depraved, what does that mean? What kind of law?"

Snape's features grew grim. "Do you know of the Sacred Twenty-Eight?" he asked Harry.

Harry shook his head. "Tell me."

"It has been established that the twenty-eight pureblood wizarding families are too few in number. In fact, they are almost extinct. Thus, a select few are instructed to grow their ranks."

That didn't sound so depraved. Was Snape avoiding the question?

Snape turned on his heel to face Harry and continued, his face carefully blank. "The Dark Lord intends to rebuild the Wizarding world to its former glory. An army of pureblood wizards to fight in his name. And what better use for the next generation of youth than an army?"

The question chilled Harry, and for the first time, he began to understand the gravity of the matter.

Snape's mouth was a thin line. "If this all goes as planned, as the Headmaster of Hogwarts, I expect the Slytherin house and the castle itself to be over-crowded in a decade's time."

"So, Malfoy's mum, um… well," Harry searched his brain for a name and then gave up and instead tried to muster any sympathy for the nameless woman who was obviously forced into an unwanted situation of giving birth to sons for Voldemort's war on humanity. It was hard to pity a Death Eater. She embraced it. "Am I supposed to feel sorry for her? 'Cause I don't."

Snape gave him a strange look. "It's not her I am concerned for."

Harry blinked.

"The law makes an allowance for a certain impurity of the… 'vessel'." Snape hissed the word with utter disgust. "Given the bastard child is raised into a pureblood name and title. Thus, it is not Narcissa, but many others that deserve your concern. And your compassion."

 _Hermione. I can't forget her name. I can't!_ Harry thought of that calm brown-eyed stare that always looked borderline-mortified, of things left unsaid, of a snake at her neck with the fangs always bared, always a step away from biting. The pure rage he felt then, made the fingers of his injured hand clenched into a loose fist, close enough for his nails to dig into the flesh of his palm.

He stopped to take a breath, staring at Snape in horror. "What have they done to her?"

"Whatever you're thinking," Snape told him, "What you don't know is likely ten times worse than you expect."

Harry'd forgotten he ever spoke to Snape's visitor the next day. But he didn't forget what Snape had said to him. It was always on the back of his mind like an overstrung string, waiting to snap at just the right moment.

_What we don't know is ten times worse…_

_This is why I have to kill him. I have to kill Voldemort._

*

Three days had passed at last. Not that Harry counted them. Not at all. He needed some sort of release, just for a while. He wanted to forget it all, forget he'd ever heard Snape speak of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Of the sinister plan to breed and to grow an army. For just a few hours, he wanted the world gone, so he could breathe freely at last. Perhaps, this is why, his mind was so on edge, seeking out something sharp and menacing to latch onto.

 _Flirting with danger doesn't seem too bad,_ Harry told himself. _I don't see why Snape was warning me against it._ This particular danger, all Snape, like the glimpse of teeth bared in a snarl, a flash of an angry stare, made Harry's heart rate pick up so suddenly but so surely.

Harry was on the way to the Library as he stopped to consider what he was about to do. After all, Snape did advise him to think it through, for the entire course of three days, no less. So Harry did, he spent all of thirty seconds (and an eternity) reflecting on what sort of trouble he's about to get himself into. It was the best kind of trouble there was!

He entered the darkened hall filled with many shelves, all slightly dustier than they had been before, now without their librarian nearby. "Snape?" Harry called out, but the place was empty. Perhaps Harry was slightly early. He wandered along the shelves leaving tracks with his finger along the long line of encyclopedias. "Hello?"

No one answered him. So he sighed and ran his hand through his hair, trying to tame it down to a presentable state. His fringe refused to cooperate, as usual, so Harry licked his palm and tried again. He winced at his own effort. Oh, who was he trying to fool? It wasn't really a date.

It only felt like one.

A chilly breeze came from the Restricted Section and Harry'd wondered which grimoire had caused it. He heard a rustle of pages so it had to have come from a book.

He was wandering along the echoing lineup of books as the attack came, sudden and swift: an iron-hard grip descended onto his shoulder and yanked him back against a flat chest. "Potter," a familiar voice sounded, soft as a whisper, making his toes curl. _Snape! He's here! He came._

"Hey!" Harry grumbled belatedly. "Watch it."

"Hushh," Snape breathed, right into his ear, ruffling the strands. The tender touch made Harry tilt his head and expose his earlobe to the caress. Snape's cloak enveloped him like dark wings along Harry's sides.

 _Oh,_ Harry thought. "Ohhh," he exhaled. His heartbeat hammered in his ears as he stayed leaning back against someone slightly taller than he was, turned facing the gilded titles of the thick book spines in a dim and dusty row of bookshelves. All he could think was: _wow, what's going to happen next?_

It was a stupid thing to wonder about, of course, because Harry knew exactly what to expect. He knew what was coming. He'd told Snape himself what he wanted to do here. _But would Snape listen?_ That was the question, wasn't it?

Snape's hands traced down his sides and hiked Harry's robe up leaving his knees bare. "Such negligence," Snape whispered into Harry's ear. "Ambling about in the Library. So late. So underdressed."

With that, a Banishing Charm brushed alongside Snape's touch and suddenly Harry felt his underclothes gone, rough scratchy wool of his outer robe rubbing raw and rough against his skin.

Snape's hands stilled at his hips. His fingers dug in, sharp and precise. "Completely careless of you." There was a slight hint of amusement in his tone, an unexpected warmth.

"Uh-huh," Harry gasped, arching back against solid heat. He could listen to Snape forever if that was the way things were going.

Snape's thumb slid alongside his inner thigh and traced its way up. Harry's knees shook. He felt one insistent knee shoved between his, spreading his legs. Snape's arm wound around his chest, warm hand sliding over his heart. The air was suddenly thick and clammy and too heavy to take in. Harry could smell Snape, his skin, his hair, and his scent, woody like a broomstick handle, overwhelmed him. The bookshelves felt like they were closing in on themselves. Harry's vision swam as he glanced around from under the shadow of his lashes. His head was bent down. Snape's lips pressed against the back of his neck, whispering something devious and warm, sealing themselves over Harry's flushed skin. And all along, deft fingers pried at the fastenings of Harry's robe, unbuttoning the collar and baring Harry's shoulder, parting the sides and yanking the heavy fabric down to his elbows.

It felt surreal to be stripped here, in a space where the books and their readers and the ultimate order once lived. It felt only right to be naked because this was Snape and breaking the rules with him was as impossible as Harry comprehending the entire encyclopedia in one sitting and as welcome as only peace without Voldemort could be.

_Making out in the library… That's definitely breaking the rules. Yeah. Let's break more!_

Harry twisted in the tight embrace, to face Snape, and reached up to capture his thin lips with his own. It was so unfair that most of Harry's clothes were banished, nowhere to be found, but Snape was covered from his toes to his neck in that ever-present black. Harry slid his hand under Snape's cloak and upward, right where wiry thigh turned into thicker muscle as Harry's fingers reached Snape's arse. Giddy and questioning his remaining sense of self-preservation, Harry grabbed a handful of warm, solid flesh covered by the thin layer of cloth and pulled Snape to him. A sound emerged from Snape's lips, but it didn't sound like disapproval. Not even a little.

 _He actually likes it,_ thought Harry, and it felt liberating, encouraging to cast aside any doubt.

Snape moved, pushing Harry back for a second, stepping against a bookshelf. _What?_ Harry emerged from his smitten reverie of nuzzling Snape's neck to see him unbutton his coat and then those sallow hands moved down, over Snape's belt, to the buttons of his trousers. There was that smirk on Snape's face, the unforgettable, unbelievable show of joy, as Harry took it in and couldn't help but kneel in its presence, fulfilling his promise.

_He'll spell my wrists tied. And then…_

Snape's low, hoarse voice whispered: "Incarcerous."

Magical ropes wound themselves around Harry's wrists, binding his arms together behind his back, making him assume a straighter stance, as he felt the thin edges digging into his skin. The conjured cords vibrated, ever so slightly, like a strummed string.

 _Ohyes. Yes!_ Harry's mouth spread in a wide grin, a sure smile of someone who was exactly where he wanted to be all day.

With his hands bound, facing the evidence of Snape's desire, Harry could forget, just for a while, about the war and about losing it. He could forget everything. When Snape's meticulous magic had bound him, it didn't matter that Harry only had use of his one hand. It didn't matter that he couldn't remember his own mum. It didn't matter that he was utterly and completely broken by Voldemort and by life.

This, making Snape cry out, raw and strained, as his mouth found its goal, with the salty mouthful weighing heavily on his tongue and stretching his lips. Precisely this: driving Snape insane and turning his breathing wild, prompting an unintended thrust of scrawny hips, a clench of those spidery fingers in Harry's hair… This alone, Harry could do rather well. He was in full control of this much even if nothing else in life had gone the way he’d planned.

*

They ended up in the bedroom afterwards, the one where Harry'd spent his nights, Apparated there by Snape, and it was unfair because the stubborn sod had still kept most of his clothes on.

Snape's hair was ruffled. His eyes wild. His hands were everywhere and his kiss-reddened mouth begged to be soothed with more of the same.

He's magnificent, Harry thought. There was no other word for it.

"What do you need?" Snape rumbled, low and soft against Harry's neck.

"Everything," Harry admitted easily as if confessing his devotion. Perhaps he did.

The perpetual shadow in the corners of Snape's mouth deepened. "That's a lot to cover."

"Do it!" Harry urged him. "I trust you."

One eyebrow arched. "Without talking it over first? How irresponsible of you."  
  


Harry stared at Snape, meeting that warm, surprised stare. "I trust you," he said again.

"All right." Snape breathed, nipping at Harry's ear. "But give me a safe word." He brushed his fingers through Harry's hair and his touch spread shivers that ran all the way down to Harry's toes.

"Safe- What?"

Deep laughter rumbled in Snape's chest as if in surprise that Harry asked. Amusement at his own expectations, perhaps. "A signal to stop. It has to be easy, but not something you would normally say during sex."

 _He said 'sex'! Snape! Sex!_ The thought of it, the sound of it had gone straight to Harry's groin.

"A word, Harry! Now!"

 _He is calling me Harry. He's staring right at me. Incredible,_ hammered through Harry's brain _. Magnificent!_ "Morbid," Harry stammered, staring mesmerised at those intense eyes. He couldn't pick any other and he couldn't very well utter its twin description and admit to Snape just how this wild ride felt to him.

Snape's lips spread in a slow grin. "Thank you. I trust you to use it when you need to. Now tell me…"

 _Morbid,_ Harry reminded himself, his lips curling around the syllables. "Yeah, what?"

Snape made a show of walking around Harry, gliding his hands down Harry's forearms. His patient fingers plucked Harry's glasses off, setting them aside. They returned, and traced Harry's spine, rubbed circles into Harry's back. Harry melted, keeping back a moan. What was it about Snape's touch that kept him so wound up, so desperate for more? "What do you like about your hands being bound?"

"I -" This wasn't fair, wasn't fair at all, in any way. "Not just the hands, it's the whole deal, I reckon."

"Yes?"

"Excitement. Not knowing," Harry admitted. Because even though now, as he was trying to heal from injuries, the moments with Snape let him forget the parts of his body that didn't work right, that he couldn't flex his hand, that he still stumbled down the high staircases and had to hold onto the railings, that he always took a step favouring his right leg. But it didn't matter if he had two working hands or one, the exciting unpredictability of surrendering himself to Snape's mercy was still true. Not knowing was exciting, like standing on an edge, like flying high, so high the air was thin and cold and the ground was an upturned bowl of foggy vegetation.

"Go on," Snape prompted him.

"When I don't know what happens or what you'll do next. I trust you despite it. And it's… I like that, OK?"

"So I see. And are you so sure you can trust me," Snape drawled.

"No!" This much was clear. Harry smiled. "But I do, anyway."

"Hm. So it's the danger. Something you cannot predict."

Harry nodded, thinking of an adrenalin rush of an especially deep dive on a broom, pulling up at the last moment and soaring. He inhaled that woody scent of Snape's hair and sighed in pleasure as Snape's hands wandered south. "All of it. Just… yeah, like that, go on."

A chuckle sounded in his ear as Snape traced a spiral over Harry's chest. "And what if I am not who you think I am?"

"So what?"

"A Death Eater, Potter. Ever thought of that?"

Harry looked up at Snape. He was sure his eyes were wide, questioning. The weight of Snape's stare was on him, sombre and dark and all danger.

"Of course not," Snape drawled. His hand slid ever so gentle along Harry's jawline. The warmth of his touch counteracted everything he said in that cold, aloof manner. "You never think, do you, you just act. And look where it brought you. At my feet, given to me by the Dark Lord himself." He paused. "Sucking a Death Eater's cock."

It was a jolt, like a bucket of cold water upended over Harry's head. Harry froze. _Morbid_ stayed at the tip of his tongue. He couldn't bring himself to say it. He couldn't, not just yet. Deep inside there was that stubborn hope that Snape was not this, not only this. But what if Snape was, and this was all an elaborate game and Harry fell for it, hook, line, and sinker _? Did it make him a collaborator? The worst of the worst. A horrible person. Or just a desperate one?_

Snape waited as if allowing his words to sink in, all the potential weight of them. The sobriety. The horror.

 _It's all pretend,_ Harry had to remind himself. _He's putting on a show. We're doing all this to kill Voldemort._

"Do you know what being captive feels like? I could show you."

Harry couldn't speak. Couldn't even move. He stared at Snape, a thousand questions in his mind. And at last, he nodded yes.

He had to know. He had to. Because even though he'd forgotten so much, he could guess full well there were others, so many others, that knew the precise impact of Voldemort's depravity.

"I knew you'd say that." Snape sighed. He stepped aside from their place on the bed and snapped his fingers. Out of nowhere, out of the plain air, materialised a silvery cane. From what Harry could see without glasses, it looked harmless up close. It looked nothing like a collar and yet reminded Harry of one, the kind he knew he had seen but forgotten where. It looked like a heavy walking stick, unfolded straight as a ruler like this. A cobra bared its fangs at the tip, each scale elaborately carved and polished to perfection.

"What's this?"

"A collar, usually." Snape smacked the silvery cane against the open palm of his left hand with a crudeness usually reserved for slapping a cock against an open hand. "Could be anything you want. What do you want it to be, hm?"

Harry shook his head, pressing his lips together, to keep any answer out.

"Oh?" Snape reached out, sliding the head of the snake against Harry's jaw. It felt cool to the touch as if it slumbered and it hadn't warmed up yet under the sun. And then, as suddenly as it felt, it shivered, vibrating with forbidden magic like the ropes Snape had cast before. A serpent, waking. A tickle of its forked tongue against his neck made Harry shiver. _It's tasting me. Like a prey. Like I'm its next meal._

Snape's lips parted, and a tip of the evenly wicked tongue emerged, wetting them.

Harry gulped, mesmerised, unable to look away from that dark stare. Just like a serpent's prey would.

And then, Snape let go of the cane. At once, it coiled in on itself, wrapping around Harry's shoulders and chest like an actual snake, its weight - solid metal. It slid, smooth and sinister across his chest, along the back of his neck.

Harry felt the robe that by some miracle had still remained around his hips drop and vanish and took in a sharp breath.

"All right?"

Harry replied with a stubborn nod, even as he felt the snake slide along his spine. He arched, he couldn't help it, and the snake coiled its weight around his neck, making it hard for him to take a breath, and dropped most of its body down his back, hanging low, that head with its flickering tongue against his ribs, against his left side and swinging toward the center. Moving down to the crack of his arse and all along Snape was watching him intently, cautiously. His spidery fingers twitched in the air now and then as if directing an orchestra. As if pulling invisible strings.

"Snape?" Harry breathed cautiously. "Um…"

Snape's forbidding stare revealed concern, if only for a second. "Safe word?"

Harry shook his head stubbornly, biting his lip.

"Then you'd best brace yourself."

The blunt, metal head had entered, gliding, right in the hollow of his arse, in between Harry's inner thighs and it made him stumble because for a second he realized he wanted it to intrude upward. It went under, between his thighs, gliding smooth against his balls, and emerged coiling itself around the base of Harry's cock. _Ohshit. Just hold still,_ Harry reminded himself. _Hold still… ohh!_

The snake tightened its hold, its tail around Harry's neck, its body along Harry's spine, its thin triangular head at the base of his cock and coiling still, trapping him into keeping his head high, his knees pressed together, his back arched. _Ohfuck._ Despite all this, or maybe because of it, he was as hard as a rock.

"Careful," Snape, ever so not helpful, commented with a slight smirk. "It's fond of attacking once it settles in. When you least expect it."

Harry inhaled sharply, and as if on cue, though he couldn't see all that well no matter how much he craned his neck, the snake's jaw opened wide as it bared its silver teeth and settled over Harry's throbbing flesh, poised to strike.

"Case in point." Snape murmured and then lifted his hand to Harry's chest, the touch felt blessedly warm and human, and the unforgiving fingers had tweaked his nipple. Harry'd almost lost it then, gasping.

His cock was trapped. It felt as if he'd forgotten how to breathe. It felt as though the world was ending. Perhaps it had already ended long ago.

"Who knows what it might do if you attempt anything as foolish as, for example," Snape mused and his knuckles brushed down Harry's belly, below his ribs, settling over his hipbone. His thumb moving, his fingers digging in. "Coming," he breathed in Harry's ear.

 _Guh,_ Harry didn't say, fought not to say with all his might.

"Not that you must. I merely thought I might mention it. Look at how hard you are already," Snape continued, as his fingertips froze right over the leaking tip of Harry's cock. "How desperately you must want it. And you do want it. How badly, Harry. Bad enough to hurt? Bad enough to ask for it?"

How did Snape do it? He made every word that came out of that mouth a fiery balm that seared across Harry's heated skin, that brought no relief with it whatsoever. Harry struggled, fighting his own stubborn body. It was a futile fight. He knew it was.

"Yes!"

The first touch of his hand to Harry's cock felt like salvation. Like falling deep and losing oneself. Falling and finding something better.

Snape's hand wrapped around his cock, squeezing. "Are you a fool, Harry?"

Harry moaned. Snape was holding him up now, his knees too unsteady to do much but buckle.

Snape's hand stilled, as Harry tried to thrust into its hold. "Shall I let go then?"

Harry moved his head in a frantic headshake. "Please!" he cried out, babbling. He didn't quite know what he was asking for.

"Please what?"

Harry exhaled his desperation, arching up, fighting against the snake's bind, fighting to feel another hot touch of that hand, fighting the heat unravelling alongside his spine, the want in his veins. He felt the sharp pinpricks of fangs at the base of his cock. He felt himself thrusting in a futile effort to reach Snape's fingertips. What did Snape _want_ from him? Rebellion? Surrender?

"Please, sir," he breathed, despite the sharp scratch of fangs, the tightening coil around the base of his cock.

"Good," In response, Snape's hands slid over him, embracing him, warm fingers over his cock moving hot and hard, and ruthless. _I had no choice in this, never did,_ washed over Harry as a hot, sunny wave. _It will always end like this. Me, trusting him to keep me safe. Me giving myself over to him. Ohgod._

 _Fuck! Oh! It's going to bite, now, any second now._ And then Snape's mouth covered his, stealing his breath. A nail pressed in, lightly at the tip of his cock, stealing his every thought. Chasing his desire downward toward one irresistible conclusion. And the wave of pleasure rushed over him as inevitable and constant as the sea. Harry rode out the first of the spasms and thrust into that impossible tightness of Snape's fingers, into the heat and was falling, falling deep. Seeing the red of the inside of his closed eyelids and then seeing nothing at all.

*

Harry awoke surrounded by the soft pillows in a bed that had become familiar over a few days. Snape's dark stare was the first thing he saw. Impatient fingers parted his fringe, traced a cautious line along his cheek, his jaw.

"All right?" Snape asked and Harry nodded.

He took stock of his body. He wasn't hurting, nor he was bound. The snake was gone. In fact, his limbs felt heavy with exhaustion and limp with lazy pleasure. "Stay," he whispered to Snape, and the bed moved with an extra weight over it, settling.

An arm slid over Harry, warm and welcome. He nuzzled a pale shoulder. _Now he takes his clothes off! Wow, talk about terrible timing._

He turned toward Snape, settling himself in against that warm weight of a larger, wiry form against his. "Stay," Harry repeated, softly, with the desperation he wasn't even hiding anymore. "Need you here." It was a bone-weary need, an ache to hold onto Snape and keep him near. All of him, the biting sarcasm and the burning stares, the scowls, the grudges, and the rare moments of vulnerability Harry was fortunate to be allowed to glimpse.

Snape's arms encircled him, pulling him close. "I’m not going anywhere. Not tonight." His breath was warm, ruffling the hair on the top of Harry's head. The air was filled with the smell of him: that wonderful woody smell of a broomstick handle, and of mutual desire. "Sleep, Harry."

Harry sighed his joy against warm skin, he allowed his eyelids to fall shut. He felt happy and that happiness by itself was an impossible, fragile thing that couldn't possibly last. He couldn't keep it and he knew he could not. There was no chance for this to work, none, whatsoever. But the bitterness of knowing so didn't stop Harry from hoping otherwise and despite all odds, that hope lived on, warming his heart and putting a lazy sated smile on his face.

 _Trusting him,_ a thought entered his sleepy mind, _would either save me or kill me. And damned if I know which it is._

*

Days couldn't pass any slower in Harry's opinion. Sure he'd seen Snape, they practised with the sword every day in the Pensieve, with Harry learning to strike and to block and to evade. But those lessons brought out Snape's cross, snappy demeanour of the Hogwarts professor, far from the intensity Harry'd thought of every time he glimpsed Snape's stare. Once, Snape's hand lingered on Harry's forearm as he adjusted Harry's pose and it sent shivers through Harry's body, so welcome and wanted that touch had been.

It was official. Harry was doomed. And Snape was a sadistic prick to make Harry wait this long for his touch, for not staying in Harry's bed every waking minute.

One morning, he experienced a rude awakening: he entered Snape's office expecting a now-familiar greeting. Instead, he saw Snape with his sleeve rolled up and the Dark Mark bared and inky-black and vicious, especially vivid where the tip of Snape's wand pressed against the jaw of the skull.

Harry recoiled from the view. A terrible thought struck him then. The thought planted in his mind by Snape. _What if Snape is a Death Eater through and through? I let him lie, I let him touch me on that desk. I let us share a bed. I trusted him. I…_

_Was there a word for wanting to pull someone near and never let go, but wanting to grab and shake him at the same time?_

Harry thought of Snape's cautious questioning, Snape's wild stare. A thoroughly human reaction to Harry's desire. Of Snape, staying the night next to him as he slept. Of the hitch in his breathing as Harry's lips touched the head of his cock. Of the scribbled notes in the library commemorating the dead.

Life would be so simple if it was black and white again and Snape was a bad guy. Harry sighed.

Snape's head lifted. "We have a problem," he said, putting away his wand and unrolling his sleeve to cover his Mark.

"What?" Harry rushed forward.

"The ceremony has been rescheduled to the nearest possible date."

Harry felt the floor shifting under his feet. "When?"

"The day after tomorrow."

"Oh." _But we hardly..._ Panic set in. _We hardly did anything yet._ "The memories, do we have enough?"

Snape's head shook. "It'll have to do." He looked pale and sombre. "I need to go," he said abruptly.

"Where?" Harry cried out because too many of his days were tinged with desperation, with trying to fit in as much living as he could in a few fleeting moments before the unknown came and going back to that state of being was unbearable.

Snape stepped up to Harry in a rush of black robes. His hands rose to Harry's temples and he leaned forward to hiss Harry's forehead. A brief, dry point of contact which meant the world to Harry. "You can't know. You shouldn't. It's safer."

The admission left Harry with a bitter taste of soberness which even the adrenaline high of the moment couldn't wash out.

 _Will I survive 'til the end of the week?_ Harry kept asking himself. _Will he? Voldemort already tortured him once._ They both knew that no good answer existed.

Time was precious. Every second counted.

Harry stepped into Snape's arms and reached out, grasping Snape's forearm. "Be careful," he said, willing desperately that it would make a difference.

Snape nodded. Stepped back.

A rustle of fabric, a rush of air and he was gone.

He wasn't back by the evening and Harry was beside himself with worry. Seven o'clock came and went. _Let Snape come back in one piece_ , he pleaded with the universe, beyond all hope. He sat in the corner sofa in Snape's office and waited, occasionally listening to Winky's gentle prompting to drink a hot cuppa. By the third time, he chided himself for being a helpless toddler, and gathered the teacups onto their tea tray, stacking them neatly. It was the least he could do in appreciation of Winky's efforts.

It was at five after nine when Snape appeared with the same soft whisper in the air.

He was pale, unsteady on his feet. But he was alive and whole and that was all Harry could expect. He rushed to Snape's side, terrified that he may find him in a much worse shape than before. But Snape seemed unharmed, so he must not have faced Voldemort or he wouldn't be back so soon, if at all.

"Is everything OK?" he asked Snape.

Snape nodded grimly. "You could say that."

"I really wish it was all over," Harry confessed. "You and me, we'd be free to do whatever it is we want."

Snape inclined his head. His gaze was curious. "What is it you want to do?" he breathed.

The question gave Harry courage. He reached out and grasped Snape's hand. It felt warm to the touch, so human. His fingers shook.

"Do you really want to know?" Harry asked.

Snape nodded, slow and respectful.

So Harry pulled Snape by the hand and led him: down the stairs, down the corridor, through the familiar doorway, toward the bed he had grown used to sleeping in.

They both needed this, he told himself. They had to do this. It was impossible not to try. What if Harry wouldn't have another chance like this?

They were both far too sombre, too quiet.

"I'm scared," Harry confessed. "Of tomorrow. Of everything. I don't want to be scared."

Snape's hands slid down his tense back, thumbs digging into the tight muscle.

"Shh," Snape hummed. The sound oddly helped. Harry slid his arm around him and held on, with all the desperate strength of a soldier on the eve of the battle. "It's not tomorrow yet."

Harry took a shaky breath and moved back, trying to relax into the soothing touch. Never in a million years would he have predicted that Snape would have a soothing effect on him. Maybe it was his voice. Maybe it was the act of Harry choosing to trust someone, with his life if needed. That sort of trust had to have consequences.

"What do you think will happen?" Harry asked.

"I don't know."

 _If Snape doesn't know… At least he's honest._ "Ha. Remember you said the unknown's ten times worse? It'd better not be now!"

"Harry…" A hand slid through Harry's hair, cautious, soothing.

"I don't want you to die. I don't want to die." Harry looked up, leaning into the touch, and paused with his cheek against Snape's sallow wrist, gathering his thoughts. Suddenly, he shoved his hand into his pocket, fishing for a familiar small scrap. There it was, a thin scrap of fabric that had to be untwisted and straightened out.

Not deliberating another second, he offered the scrap on the open palm to Snape. Because this was the only right thing to do. The only thing he could do. "For luck? Or in case one of us doesn't make it."

"Potter…"

"Just keep it. It's… I want to give you something but I've got nothing else to give. And this has been with me through some tough times."

"You're wrong," Snape's voice hitched.

"About what? Tough times?"

"About you having nothing." Snape's hands slid over his jaw, tilted his chin upwards so Harry faced that warm dark stare. "When this is all over, you'll have the world to offer to someone."

There was such conviction in Snape's voice, such wistfulness, that it made Harry smile. He reached up, by instinct, like a plant reaching for the sun, for the warmth of Snape's lips.

Snape didn't stop him. He leaned forward to meet Harry halfway.

Those thin lips were soft, parted. His breath was humid and hot between them, mingling with Harry's. His touch, ever so gentle, as his fingers slid into Harry's hair, tilting Harry's head and steering them toward the bed. Harry hadn't even realised how much he’d needed that, to keep kissing someone without care, someone who kissed him back and wasn't afraid to take control.

This wasn't someday, this was now. And now, Harry wanted to make sure they both remembered tonight, even if nothing else came after it. He needed to make sure Snape knew, and felt, every bit of this simple truth, when it came to now, not always, Harry was his.

It may have been nothing as eternal as Snape's 'Always' in the Headmaster's office, nothing as graceful as his silvery doe, but it's what they had together and it was real, and for now, that was enough.

 _This'll change everything,_ Harry thought. _But what did the consequences matter?_ It may be the last night they both spent on this earth.

"Promise me," Harry asked softly, breaking their kiss and struggling to speak against the need to dive back into that secure, warm oblivion of Snape's embrace. "Just promise. Obliviate me if you need to. Tonight isn't for Voldemort. Or anyone else. It's just for us alone."

"Are you certain?" Snape echoed as if not quite believing.

"Yes."

With his left hand, Harry unbuttoned his collar, pulled his robe over his head. Snape's steady arms had helped but soon turned into a wonderful distraction, fingers gliding over the bare skin of his chest, his sides, ticklish and maddening in their slow descent. Harry tried to return the favour by leaning forward and planting a trail of kisses down Snape's unbuttoned front, against pale skin covered with sparse chest hair. Impatient, he pushed Snape's robe off, baring one shoulder, exposing a dark nipple. Snape's ribs were visible for the counting, his sides moving with every breath he took.

 _Where has he been today?_ Harry'd wondered. _What has he done? Who has he gone to see, knowing tomorrow may be our last day to live?_ It was killing him not to know. Not to be allowed to know this for his own good.

Snape's robes smelled of mud and dust and windy places. His hair smelled of wood and fireplace smoke. His lips tasted faintly of black tea and Harry was suddenly nervous like a boy in front of a stern teacher, to press a kiss to them. But he wasn't a boy anymore, they were both old enough to fear dying tomorrow. "Snape," Harry called out on a strangled breath. "Severus. I need you." He lifted his head up to face that dark, warm, questioning stare. "Take me." He held his breath and hoped that Snape had understood exactly what Harry meant. He didn't think he'd have the courage to ask again.

He wasn't sure at all if this was terribly overstepping his bounds of whatever it is they had together. 'Cause when it came down to it, Harry chose to believe Snape loved his mother and this, whatever _this_ was, was nothing like it, neither eternal nor poignant in a bittersweet sort of way, so how could Harry even dare to think, to imagine that… this, them, could be anything special?

"Yes," said Snape, his voice stifled and frantic at once. "Allow me…"

"No." Harry stopped him. "Let _me_."

Snape shed his black layers like an unravelled cloak, and then he stood before Harry, bare-chested, pale, and magnificent. Harry nuzzled the side of his neck, unable to pull back, as he pushed Snape's trousers open with his good hand, and Snape gasped, actually gasped, and breathed Harry's name into his hair in a tone that held equal parts demand and desire. Harry loosened the fastenings of Snape's trousers enough to unbutton the fly, he pushed it open and pressed his hand in boldly. There was not enough time to do everything, everything he wanted. He reached up for a kiss and kept on kissing Snape, along those stubborn lips, along the sharp shoulder-blades and the curve of his neck, as he pressed himself close to Snape, nuzzling the sharp, rough curve of his jaw, the softness of his earlobe, and when he put his mouth to it Snape exhaled sharply as if he couldn't bear to be held or kissed so intimately, but tilted his head anyway, leaning into the contact.

As if Snape had never been kissed like that before, at a dizzying, demanding pace. By anyone.

_Maybe he hadn't been. Just like Harry hadn't been before._

Harry took the whole of several minutes for the journey down, mapping Snape's torso with his lips, tasting sweat and salt and the smell of aroused flesh. He looked up then, and nudged Snape's hand resting over his shoulder toward the top of his head, as he traced his lips over the heated hard-on, the obvious proof that Snape wanted this, wanted him, as if the wild, wanting look on Snape's face wasn't enough proof of that.

Harry couldn't stop, he buried his face against the bend of Snape's thigh, nuzzled Snape's erection and held on, exhaling against heated skin.

"I… wait," said Snape weakly. And then stepped back, bracing himself against the wall of the room. Was it Harry's imagination or did Snape's knees shake? Harry slid his hand along the inside of a pale thigh. _Yes, they were definitely shaking._

"If only you could see yourself now," Snape breathed, his hair covering his face, a glimpse of a blush on those sallow cheeks still visible.

Harry huffed in amusement. "Busy watching you."

"I'm not much to look at. You, on the other hand… Speaking of hands, do you want them bound?" Snape asked, regaining that commanding tone. Harry couldn't help but wonder if Snape deflected every conversation that struck too close to home with the same commanding spirit which would explain so many of his classroom insults. But maybe, just maybe, this was simply Snape, being considerate.

 _I didn't think he'd ask it,_ Harry thought. _Oh wow. He did._ He shook his head, overwhelmed into silence because this moment was perfection.

"No. I want to hold you."

"Very well." Snape murmured and Harry's wrists remained free.

It wasn't the Shrieking Shack, or the Library, or Snape's office but here Harry was, kneeling before Snape again, with his lips gliding over hard, hot flesh, with Snape's cautious hand in his hair and it was everything Harry had dreamed of and more.

Not quite all of it.

He felt a careful hand on the back of his neck, tracing out the dip on the back of his skull, holding him in place as his mouth parted over the tip of Snape's cock, as he exhaled wetly and moved forward, taking Snape in, deeper.

 _Yes, like this. Just like this. I know he may need to erase my memory for good, but I hope, I really do, that it won't happen. I want to remember this all. Oh please let me remember this after tomorrow._ Harry wanted to remember, down to the last shuddering breath, down to the last gasp ringing in his ears. _Please let there be an after-tomorrow for us._

Harry's robe wasn't fully off, until many frantic breaths, and minutes, later, as he was bracing on his elbows and knees, Snape's hold on him hot and insistent. He was pulled up by a firm hand, and he was almost tempted to push Snape down onto the floor and writhe against him, in desperation, as Snape, at last, pushed Harry onto his back, and Harry felt so naked then, spread out like a feast for another's eyes. He chuckled helplessly and reached up to push Snape's hair back off his face because that stare _burned_ , and then Snape moved against him, tender and gentle, stroking Harry like calming down a timid colt and they moved together. So close and so right it was as Harry's knees were lifted and pushed up over Snape's shoulders. Snape kissed him, frantic, his lips soft compared to the sandpaper feel of his chin, his seeking hand squeezing Harry's cock, reaching behind his balls and pressing in, with an incantation muttered. And suddenly it felt sick and hot and Harry thrust up, wanting it to have happened days ago, wanting this to last forever. Simply wanting. As desperately as he wanted magic back at his fingertips.

Snape angled himself and thrust in and Harry's body slowly accepted the invasion. They embraced each other, both holding on with all their might. With Snape inside him, it was a long while before either of them moved and Harry moved first, arching up and demanding more.

Snape's hands were pushing Harry's legs apart and holding him down, his weight heavy over Harry, his hair hanging low and draping over Harry's face.

"C'mon," Harry gasped, against feathery black ends dragging over his face and chest. "Need you."

Snape's teeth bared in an effort to hold back as he threw caution to the winds and thrust in deeply. Harry gasped. It felt so full. So right. _Oh yes,_ Harry thought, matching Snape's pace thrust after thrust. _Yes, yes, yes. In me. Again. C'mon. Please, oh yes._

The tension, the need built deep within him, the hardness of his leaking cock trapped between their bodies, Snape gasping for breaths over him. They were naked together, no longer terrified of what the future would bring because the present moment lasted forever and overwhelmed all else, edging out all caution from all of Harry's senses. Making him offer his body, his mind to another in the most intimate of acts.

They fit together, moving as one, with great heaving breaths, Harry's body shuddering, arching up toward the weight pinning him down. Snape's hands were all over, over his sides and his forearms, light and ticklish, and one such a move even prompted a laugh out of him, and then Snape laughed too, rich and deep, the sound of something trapped for decades and then let free like a golden snitch flying. Harry startled then, enough to keep one leg wrapped around Snape and bracing with another, flipping them over and rolling, until he was on top and Snape was trapped between Harry's parted thighs, and Harry was the one bobbing up and down impaled on Snape's cock still. He pressed down as deeply as he could and felt Snape gasping, shuddering, thrusting up. And it was perfect, simply perfect, as he sunk down on Snape's hard cock, and felt the heat deep inside him unravel, sudden like a lightning bolt.

 _I have you._ He thought, answering that dark, heavy-lidded gaze.

_I love you._

*

They were on the rug in front of the fire. Harry sprawled bonelessly against Snape's shoulder. His good arm was wrapped around the bony body, as for his other hand, stretched over Snape's chest...

He glanced at it and then released a cautious breath.

"Look," he whispered. Not daring to believe his luck just yet.

"What?"

"Just watch."

Snape followed Harry stare at his injured hand. Resting over the side of Snape's body, the fingers twitched slightly, tapping against Snape's ribs.

"Yeah!" Harry breathed. "Oh yeah!"

He grinned.

He didn't know how else to express his happiness but to lean over and press his lips against Snape's. No other gesture could have possibly done it. No other gesture could have possibly explained how it felt to steal happiness amid the threat of death, with someone else there to share it.

For a mere second, Harry cared about living again, and not just sacrificing his life to kill Voldemort. Did Snape feel this alive too when they were together? Harry very much hoped so.

Snape's timid hold on him grew stronger and more possessive. Harry had nothing to compare it to, except perhaps one thing: the way he had once clutched his Invisibility Cloak before it was torn away from his grasp.

*

It was the morning before the ceremony. They stood together in Snape's office as the early morning sun beamed through the window frames. Everything seemed so cheery, so harmless, despite the occasion. Harry's left hand shook, and he pushed his hands behind his back, so Snape wouldn't see it.

"When I say the incantation, you should not feel differently," Snape said. "I will not seek out or affect any memories besides what we both we both know needs to be altered."

Harry nodded.

"Ready?"

 _How could anyone be ready for this?_ Allowing a lover to take what they had both shared and twist it into something horrible to satisfy a power-hungry monster? Harry took in a sharp breath. _It has to be done. This is what needs to be done._ "Go on."

"One, two, three… Legilimens," Snape said, his stare piercing and hollow at the same time as if he stared at a distant projection of Harry's thoughts right behind him. It felt… the opposite of invasion.

"It's working. I will modify the memory in your mind… Now." Snape warned. Harry didn't feel any different, as promised. He tried to recollect the day they… did what they had to do, in this very office. How did it go again, their first time? Snape had advanced on him, Harry was so uncertain… _No, that's not right._

"Don't dwell on it!" Snape warned, his tone abrupt but still tender. "It's too risky and the more you examine it, the less it will hold under scrutiny. You'll unravel it before it serves its purpose."

"This is insane," Harry sighed, seeing his memory self meekly stepping forward, eyelashes lowered, and baring his throat for the ravishing. Memory Snape tilted his head up so he could meet his eyes. Memory Harry looked up, in alarm. It was a memory, all right, but no way this was real.

"OK, listen, this won't even fool me. Why can't you cast Imperius on me and be done with it? Then you'll be in full control of whatever it is we don't want him to see."

Snape appeared to consider it, for all but two seconds.

"No," he said, at last, abrupt and final.

"Why not? I give you my permission."

"You don't have the magical resistance. One wrong move and it will leave permanent damage. I'm not willing to risk your mind. It's been damaged already."

"But…"

"No, Harry!"

Harry sighed. There was no arguing with Snape when he sounded so forbidding. What chance did Harry ever stand at changing his mind?

"Fine, it'd better work."

Snape stepped up. "Distractions matter. Count your steps," he said. "Slow down your breathing. And notice details around you, scents, sounds, focus on that. Don't make eye contact and let him latch onto death or torture. Feed it to him, but don't let yourself be drowned by your own past."

Harry bit his lip. "I'll try."

Snape gave him a sombre stare. "Your life may well depend on it."

"I said, I'll _try._ " Harry stopped that line of thought abruptly. "If he gets to me," he blurted out, "And you're there, and you know it's hopeless, don't try to save me. I want you to live." I want Snape alive, even if it means Voldemort lives too. The realisation of that stunned him. It was selfish. It was against everything Harry'd fought for. He couldn't help but want it anyway. Desperately, madly, he wanted Snape to live.

Snape's hand warmed Harry's cheek. "I can't promise anything," Snape said softly, cautiously. "But I've survived this far. And so did you."

Harry nodded and stepped into the warm safety of Snape's dark robes, into an embrace that seemed to last forever. As he inhaled that familiar scent of Snape's skin, as he held on, he promised himself to keep on surviving. For both of them. Because Snape would do the same in his place.

*

 _It's time._ That's what Snape said as he conjured up a snake lying flat and still around Harry's collar, his warm hand lingering over Harry's cheek, to counteract the chill of the metal fangs against the side of Harry's neck. The snake was still and heavy and held none of the excitement Harry felt when Snape had used it to demonstrate a point.

Harry took a breath and then leaned forward desperately, pressing his lips against Snape's and feeling Snape's mouth opening under his. It was perhaps the last chance they'd ever get to do this. They lingered, Harry's hand over Snape's shoulder, Snape's arms encircling Harry. His dark stare piercing through any uncertainty Harry had held about Snape's allegiances, and burning, burning. Harry cherished every second of that memory.

They descended the staircase together.

The heavy doors parted before them both, just as they had closed shut before.

It was the first time Harry entered the Great Hall since everything had happened. The ceiling held a thousand brightly lit stars, galaxies full of them, constellations of the summer sky to daze the senses. It's as if the Great Hall had become a holding place worthy of a god. The vision of Voldemort, victorious and celebratory, at the head of the Great Hall was surreal, sickening, the green trim of his robes clashing with the greying pallor of his skin, his inhuman features revealing pleasure and pride.

At his side stood a witch with a crazed stare, her voluminous robes doing nothing to hide the bump of her belly. Families dressed in their finest attire were gathered like court attendants, forming a tight circle in the available space. The plain-clothed witches cowered in the corners of the room, all carrying those heavy snake collars around their necks, the snakes poised mid-bite. The same snake collar that now rested heavily over Harry's clavicles.

A toddler had stepped into the space toward the centre, the dandelion-wisp on her head, a halo. All rosy cheeks and giggles, filling the silence. Voldemort raised his hand, demanding attention, and someone's cautious hand pulled the toddler back.

"In these days of glory, after the defeat of our enemies, we, the sacred Twenty-Eight, must remember the greater cause we all work toward." Voldemort stood at the podium once used by Albus Dumbledore and raised his long, curved index finger. "Our immortality, my faithful servants. Immortality of our families and our futures. For we all have a role, a task, just as our forefathers intended." A pregnant pause hung in the air as the listeners fell into absolute silence, gathering closer and closer to their leader.

"In a generation, we must restore the Wizarding world to its former glory, nay, less than that! We must, or we face extinction and despair. But enough of the unpleasantries. Thanks to my guidance we shall not fall into ruin, no! We shall prosper! In just a few decades I expect Hogwarts to be filled with the finest pureblood wizards our households can produce. An army of faithful young men. Everyone must contribute to the cause and send forth their brightest and best sons and daughters in my service for years to come." With that, the mad-eyed witch, her hair wild, gazed adoringly at her pregnant belly and rested her hand over it. "Headmaster Snape is ready to mould our new warriors into everything they may be under my command. Your sons will quadruple our ranks! Your daughters will contribute to the most glorious cause of all, family." Voldemort continued. "The strongest and the most skilled, born of the finest magical bloodlines. That is the rule I set for your first and second-born, those who will inherit your wealth and your power. But, contrary to what some may have claimed, I am not a monster. And thus, to fulfil the quota of soldiers for our future armies, and to ease the burdens on their gentle yet devoted mothers, your youngest may be born of lesser vessels and still take your name." Voldemort approached the still crowd and his gnarly fingers had rested on the toddler's wispy hair, petting the pale halo. The toddler giggled.

"Thus, we all have our place. Even this young soul has a role to play."

 _'Lesser vessels'... The monster is using war slaves to breed his army for him,_ Harry thought. _All the witches I can't remember… Has to be._ He raised his eyes at Snape. Snape stood as still as a statue, by all account enthralled by the speech.

"Now, let the festivities begin." Voldemort waved his hand, wincing at the mewling cry of a toddler in the front row. "Take the young away. Keep them safe and growing fast for the glory of our cause. They may be small now, but soon they will be strong enough to offer me their devotion!"

Harry thought the worst was over and he had full intention to disappear as Voldemort's booming voice called out: "Harry Potter. Just what have you been… up to?"

The invasion of Harry's mind had none of Snape's gentleness. Voldemort had stared at Harry with the red slits for eyes and stepped in, rifling through Harry's memories as if they had been scrolls unrolled on the surface of the table, with a hand that was anything but considerate.

 _Don't think,_ Harry thought futilely. _Just don't think. Breathe in, breathe out. Count. One… two…_

"Hm," Voldemort said. "Really? Oh, you have been through some vile unpleasantries, but not nearly as many as I'd hoped for. Severus? Why is the toy I gave you still unbroken?"

"My Lord…" Snape bowed low. "I have nothing but my eternal gratitude for your generous gift…"

Harry felt his thoughts stirred to the surface. Secret, precious moments.

_Promise me. Tonight isn't for Voldemort. It's for us alone._

_Are you certain?_

_Yes._

_Nononono!_ He struggled against the tide, against the force dragging his memories upwards from the safe edges of his mind. _You can't have it. It's mine. He's mine!_

But with disregard for Harry's struggle, the assault on his mind continued, flipping over his worry and his fear, and every single one of his uncertainties, like through the open pages of a book.

_Where has he been today? What has he done? Who has he gone to see, knowing tomorrow may be our last day to live?_

_'Where' indeed_ , a voice sounded in his head and Harry knew then with the absolute horrifying certainty who it was.

"Enough!" Voldemort shouted. "That is enough lies from _you_."

 _Ohgod,_ Harry thought. _He knows. He knows everything. We're dead!_

A spell lashed out from Voldemort's wand, hitting Snape with a flash of blue. _Not green,_ Harry reassured himself. _Not green._ It took all of his will to keep himself from lunging to shield Snape from it.

Snape fell to his knees, his features pale and bloodless, his hands fisted, his jaw jutting out stubbornly, his hooked nose raised to the skies of the ceiling like some exotic bird's beak.

_Is that what he used to torture Snape before? Or is it something brand new?_

The crowd fell silent at the spectacle, mostly getting out of the way of the spell, now holding Snape captive. All was still.

And right there and then, with a violent flash, the speaker's podium exploded into a million pieces, just as Voldemort lunged away from it. A great roar sounded, making the sudden silence in Harry's ears all the more ominous. The pieces of shrapnel had reached the first row of onlookers, pushing them back like a house of cards tumbling. He was thrown backward by the blast but as he turned, lifting himself upwards, Harry glimpsed blood streaming, horrible sight of twisted limbs, and of wounds, raw and gut-twisting, like minced meat.  He should certainly be hearing screaming but all he heard was a dull hiss and silence which meant his ears weren't working. What was going on?

_Bomb! Who planted it? Us?_

He saw the plain-clothed witches stepping in from the corners, cowering no longer, crowding over the wounded, wrestling the wands from the grasps of the dead and raising them at the dark form collapsed on the floor.

Harry still couldn't hear. He could barely see the brief flashes of movement, of struggle all around him.

A glimpse of Voldemort's body pierced by shrapnel. A flash of a grey-cloaked, frizzy-haired figure, tearing a snake necklace off and stomping on it, leaving it in the dust. Taking the finely-dressed witch's wand and raising it at her.

It must've been the vision of the Great Hall, the fighting within, the sight of that high arched ceiling with the projection of the cloudless starry sky. Of the explosions going off under it, of hexes flying that did it. Because Harry's entire body shook with impact.

A frizzy-haired woman held a stranger's wand against a pregnant witch with her crazy hair, right beside him, the hood of her cloak lowered, and her boot still placed over a writhing silvery snake.

Before him, Voldemort's bloodied form shifted. Moved.

Harry looked down and saw that unknown to himself, both of his hands were closed in tight fists. "Snape," he cried out not hearing his own desperation through the blunt post-explosion silence in his ears. "Help!" And suddenly he was surrounded by friendly magic, cradled by it. Awash with it, lifted and carried and pulled up like on the upstroke of a crazy broomstick dive. Harry's injured hand, burned above the wrist, with a fluttery tingle at the long-healed scratches of snitch wings. He pulled his sleeve up and saw that the disjointed marks were glowing, thickening, forming a large red tattoo of a lion, its long mane spread from the crook of Harry's elbow to the veins at his wrist. The lion moved, roaring in a rumbling silence and suddenly Harry felt the weight of a sword hilt in his hand, all silver and rubies. Harry used his wand hand to grip it with all the desperation of someone more than a soldier and did not let it fall.

 _I am not a broken toy,_ he thought desperately. _I am not a fallen soldier. I'm more than that. Much more. I am a man with everything left to lose. And I_ will _kill you._

And then he took a step forward and swung blindly, desperately, his sword in both hands, the blade slicing through the air and lodging itself in Voldemort's side. With a great squelch, Harry pushed it in then, not having the luxury to do anything but this. The very thing he was afraid he would no longer be able to do. Everything he’d dreamed of for so long and at the same time was terrified of doing.

Voldemort reached for him with great clawing hands and they tumbled on the stone floor of the Great Hall.

There was one thing Harry had to get right. "Severus Snape was never yours," Harry hissed. "He was ours from the moment you started hunting my mother."

Voldemort didn't answer, gasping on the stone floor, Gryffindor’s sword in his chest, as Harry slowly twisted it, holding it with both hands, leaning into the hilt and pressing it in so hard he saw Voldemort's body sliding on the slick floor damp with spreading blood.

"You never saw him cast a Patronus. It's a doe, same as my mum's. You never had him. And you never saw it coming."

"I knew," croaked Voldemort in something that was almost a laugh and then his red eyes met Harry's and Harry felt the words projected directly into his mind. _"He wanted her once. There were others, pure-blooded, worthy."_

"And me." It wasn't a question.

_"Yes, a war prize, a toy. I crushed Dumbledore and her. Snape's mine."_

"Lily," Harry shouted. "My mother's name. Was. Lily!" And he drove the blade deeper in.

With a final hissing breath, the Dark Lord shuddered, and then, moved no more, a corpse on the ground at last.

Harry took a deep shaking breath and let go of the sword hilt.

As he turned, a wondrous thing happened. It was so sudden, the onslaught of _remembering._ Nearly as sudden as gaining the ability to hear back after being hit with the blast and momentarily rendered deaf.

_Nymphadora Tonks, wand drawn, sending a well-aimed jinx into a crowd of fighters._

_His mother's, Lily's ethereal smile, as she searched Harry's face hungrily with her green eyes. "You've been so brave."_

_Narcissa Malfoy's head bent low, her nails digging into Harry's chest. "He is dead!"_

_"No!" Professor McGonagall screamed, echoed by Hermione. Amid that, Bellatrix Lestrange let out a glorying laughter._

_Hannah Abbott darted past Harry into the Great Hall._

_Narcissa Malfoy ran through the crowds screaming for her son._

_Hermione battled Bellatrix, her Killing Curse missing someone by an inch._

_"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" Molly Weasley struck by Bellatrix' curse._

_Minerva McGonagall blasted backwards, flailing and writhing through the air…_

So sudden it all was, that Harry had forgotten how to breathe from the avalanche of things in his head that had happened in this hall, in this castle, and the ones that were happening still.

*

Voldemort's unlikely defeat had seemed to take all will to fight out of his followers. Many fled on foot to the entrance hall, met by the house-elves. Others had stumbled, dazed, from the explosion. A young mother held her toddler daughter to her, her wand on the ground, one hand raised in surrender, shielding her child.

It wasn't a battle after that, but a victory for the plain-clothed witches overtaking the festive crowd of ceremony attendees, huddling in small groups.

Hermione was at his side once more. _Hermione!_

He hugged Hermione as soon as he could. He held on with a desperation of a cellmate finally free of his chain to reach for human contact. "I'm so sorry," he breathed into her shoulder. _For not remembering, for not asking the right questions, for being a complete idiot when she could've used my help._

But it was Hermione's turn to take care of him. "Are you OK, Harry?" Hermione's wand was out, and she frantically cast a diagnostic spell. "Your magic, it's… barely there at all. And there's a spell on you. Several, actually. Very dark." Hermione, apparently responsible for all those explosions, stepped back, casting tracing charms as she walked.

"That bastard," one of Hermione's companions gasped behind her, glaring accusingly at Snape. Condemning him with one pointing finger.

"They’re not Snape's!" Harry protested. "Voldemort's."

Hermione's wand lit up with a diagnostic spell. "I can lift it, let me try. I need a different wand. That one." She looked down at the Elder Wand still grasped within Voldemort's still, dead hand.

Snape's lips thinned.

For a second, Harry considered the chances of Hermione becoming evil and bending the world to her will. "Do it," he said. She bent down, picking up the stick that had held so much death and caused so much despair and it looked large and awkward in her grasp. _Harry thought of firstie Hermione, casting her spells far better than any of them could manage and carrying her books everywhere. Yeah, even if the worst happens, she'd be quite all right at ruling the world. If given the chance, she'll probably turn it into a giant Library and I'm actually fond of those now._

Harry turned to meet Snape's eye then. After all that had happened, Harry asked himself, was there anything tying them together? _Was it all just the war? Was that all there was?_ That raw feeling of being naked as only a squib among wizards can feel, and afraid of dying, and tired of war. A brief glimpse of contentment among all the weariness and the dread.

_If Hermione lifts the curse, we can be apart again. I can leave him behind if I so choose._

He looked up at Snape, willing him to stand up to the challenge of that single question in his stare. _What were we to each other?_

A thin red line appeared at Harry's forehead. It led to Snape's wrist. Two respective marks from Voldemort and one spell to be broken.

"Hm, not a slavery bond, that I can tell," Hermione continued as she traced her new wand along the spell. "And you're not under his control, Harry."

"A vow," Harry clarified. "He vouched for me. If I leave his side, he dies."

"Ah," Hermione nodded. "Of course. Well, we can't have that. There's a weak point, right here in the middle. I will try here, stay still."

Harry turned to Snape. Questioning, questioning. Snape's stare, open and pained, held no answers.

"Ah, almost..." Hermione flicked the Elder Wand, and Harry felt something let go of him abruptly as if a grip had unfolded, the one around his heart. The red flare dimmed and faded. "There! You're free."

Snape's lips stretched into a smile. His hands were fisted and his bony knuckles stood out, pale and tense.

Only a slight incline of Snape's head was needed, and Harry's neck felt lighter, freed of the grasp of the conjured silver snake.

Immediately, Harry stepped toward him. Took hold of Snape's left hand. The fingers uncurled in his hold. A flash of grey and red in the centre of Snape's palm.

A scrap of fabric. Harry's cloak, turning a patch of Snape's skin invisible.

"I suppose you'll want this back." Snape croaked, his tone softened with vulnerability, but Harry knew he'd rather die than admit it.

Harry's fingers poised to take the keepsake stilled, let out a breath that sounded more like a sob. "Daft git."

He reached out with newfound deliberation, tracing his fingers along the thin silk, and rolled it between his fingers. It was still warm from Snape's hold. "May I?"

There was a question in Snape's eyes as Harry grasped his hand.

On the back of Harry's mind were the stirrings of memories, of other hands grasping his, before being torn away from him forever.

"I need you to hold on to this," he said firmly. And then, questioning own daring, with his breath held, abruptly wrapped the fabric around Snape's sallow wrist. It wasn't magic, and it wasn't a vow but it was a ritual, of not forgetting anyone anymore. And rituals mattered. They mattered a lot.

Snape's eyes were wide and questioning and so dark Harry could see his own reflection in them. "M' not leaving," he reassured Snape. "I'm not!"

"I'm letting people in," Snape said grimly. "Ready?"

Snape's head tilted as if listening to something distant and he waved his arm as if directing a distant door wide open. It's as if a countdown had begun in Harry's head then. _One, two…_ he held his breath.

Harry grasped Snape's hand into his and faced the formidable crowd who rushed through the doors of the Great Hall, wands drawn. He positioned himself firmly in firing range, between Snape and the newcomers. He may not have had magic, but his body, his hands, his voice were still useful for something.

"Wait!" he cried, as they advanced on Snape: Aberforth Dumbledore, Arthur Weasley, Neville, at the head of the group.

The wands lowered slowly, and Snape's grip was so tight around Harry's wand hand. He felt defenceless at all these wand points, weak as a toddler, and mourning the memory of magic he could once wield, but Harry gripped back and stayed right there, barely afraid anymore, right where he belonged.

"Hold," Harry shouted. "He's with us."

_He's with me._

*

Harry felt odd. He remembered Hermione now. And Mum. And even some of his teachers. But the knowledge came and went, as fluid as smoke, here one moment and gone the next, leaving only smoothed out empty spaces behind. Harry was horrified that he'd forget Hermione again.

The mediwitch (she must've been one, had he seen her before?) was a bit young for her position and wasn't wearing a standard uniform. Not that there was much order to things after the Ministry takeover by the good guys.

Her sunny smile was infectious. Harry grinned up at her. She’d caught his eye right away, not only because she reminded him of Ron. They talked about the weather and about Quidditch. She followed the Holyhead Harpies and Harry proudly told her Valmai Morgan (he remembered! Ha!) had a lot of potential, 'cause well, ten goals on her first game, people still talked about that!

"Aren't you a happy one today," she murmured giving him a curious stare. "Anything the matter?"

"No," Harry said, "Not that I can think of. Well, maybe there is."

"Ri-ight," she rolled her eyes and tossed back her red mane. "Must be someone special on your mind, to make you smile like that." She carried on chatting and was surprisingly easy to talk to.

"Yes," Harry nodded. "Yes, he is. Hope I'll see him today, in fact."

She seemed unsettled but hid it well. "Well, that's a surprise." Something about that response didn't sit well with Harry.

"Surprised me too," Harry lashed out, against his own insecurities as much as hers, suddenly protective of Snape. "Amazing kisser," Harry confessed with a smile on his face because openness was the only way he knew to deal with this sort of thing. "Didn't think it'd work and yet here we are. It's… complicated. But yeah, I'm optimistic."

An older, motherly witch entered the room mid-way through Harry's frazzled confession to a stranger. "Hello, Mrs Strout here," she said in a no-nonsense voice. "I will be helping with your memory problem today. Well, let's have a look at you. Quickly now." She turned to her assistant. "Are you with the patient, Miss?"

Harry blinked and looked at them both.

"Did you hear me? Are you with the patient, Miss? What is your name?"

The redheaded mediwitch still looked stricken. "No," she blurted. "I don't believe so."

Harry thought it odd that she exited the room so swiftly, her steps hurried and distraught. He glanced at the door and couldn't help but think something was terribly wrong.

It wasn't until the first treatment was over that he froze where he sat and buried his head in his hands.

_Oh, Gin._

_I am so, so sorry._

*

At Bellatrix Lestrange's sentencing, Ginny sat still and stiff as a statue. The heavy backed chairs of the Ministry halls felt so familiar by now. Hermione reached out and rested her hand right next to Ginny's knee. _No one should go through this alone, I suppose_. Ginny planned on being there for Hermione: Lucius Malfoy was killed during the uprising but Narcissa's second hearing was next month.

"Harry wrote me another letter," Ginny answered. "I have to hand it to him. He's… stubborn." Stubborn was one way to put it. If she could call (what was now definitely) her ex that. How much did it take, how many memories had needed to be removed, for him to admit he was into blokes? One bloke, in particular. A proper monster, as far as Ginny was concerned.

"Are you going to read it?"

"What's there to read?" Ginny huffed. But then admitted softly, "Not yet."

They were silent as they heard the ticking of the clock. The court was in recess, to resume in half an hour. Five minutes must've passed in silence. A crowd, so many of them, in the seats and in the hall. The Wizengamot itself was young and unapologetically female, composed of the captives that had lived through the heart of Voldemort's horrors.

 _All the witches he couldn't burn,_ thought Ginny with satisfaction. _All the witches he couldn't own._ But now their necks were bare, released from the serpent collars. Their wrists were not in chains. Their voices unleashed to recount the horrors done to them. Their minds freed to pass judgement.

A young Hufflepuff two years before them in school wore a dark patch over her missing eye. A tall Ravenclaw - Marie or Mary, Ginny hadn't been introduced to her yet - with an infant in a sling, lifted her head high so the rim of her old-fashioned witch's hat didn't cast a shadow over her daughter's face.

A wide-eyed squib with a scarred face - _Zoe? I think her name is Zoe,_ \- her fringe teased up high and her lipstick bright, had given her testimony just this morning. Ginny remembered that girl from the halls of Lestrange Manor. Her hair was a tangled mess and her burns, infected. She had been in chains then, her lips cracked and bitten and stained with blood instead of makeup. They had never called her by her name. They hadn't called anyone by their name.

Minerva McGonagall presided over the proceedings, from her stiff-backed chair with magically moving wheels that hovered several inches above the floor.

"I don't understand what Harry's thinking," Ginny sighed. "Protecting that… that murderer."

Hermione sighed. "He's had a different experience, Gin. And Headmaster Snape, he… he's loyal to the Order. His house-elves were the one to plant Ellie's explosives in the Great Hall!"

"I don't care!" Ginny scowled. "I don't care if he helped the Order twice over. He murdered Dumbledore. He took advantage of Harry when he was…"

"No, Ginny. No! I was there in the room when he surrendered his memories to us. I may not have seen what Harry saw, but I saw them both. Snape may be guilty of many things, but he's loyal to us. He'd never..."

"Fine!"

"You may not want to hear it, but consider this, war is hell. You don't know what Harry's been through. Maybe we'll never know. Don't you trust Harry, of all people, to do what's right?"

"That's the thing, I _don't_ know. We didn't even break up. The second time. Not properly. Though the Howlers were so worth it." Ginny's lips twisted stubbornly as she looked past the crowds into the far corner of the hall, pausing until the chill of realisation struck her, abrupt with its finality. "We'll never have a normal conversation again, will we, he and I?"

"That is up to you."

"Whose side are you on, Hermione? Really, 'cause with that new wand you've got..."

"Ours," Hermione said flatly. "Always ours. I'm just saying, perhaps you should let him say his part. The least you can do is read his letter."

Ginny shook her head. "One day. When the time is right."

 _'He'll never remember you,'_ Tom Riddle had said to Ginny over and over in her mind, the thought haunted her even in waking hours. ' _He won't even know your name.'_

Ginny thought of a young boy she once loved. The boy who broke up with her at Dumbledore's funeral. A wholesome, awkward Quidditch player, so gentle at kissing her, her dead brother's best friend and for now all she felt was numbness. The same terrible numbness often came over her when thinking of the lives left behind in the Great Hall. The terrible loss she couldn't even begin to process.

Had mum been alive, had the Burrow still been standing, Ginny would’ve Apparated home, sobbing, burying her face in Mum's shoulder, at the recollection of her first love speaking so casually of kissing another. _'Great kisser'_ he babbled, oblivious as only Harry could be. _What would he ever say about me?_ Ron and the twins would promise to beat him up because anyone who'd hurt their little sister was asking for a proper thrashing, and she'd fight with them not to hurt him too much. But that was all in a different world, a gentler world. And in this world, Mum was still dead and Ginny attended her murderer's sentencing.

But Neville was waiting to see them after the hearing and Charlie would be let out of the hospital soon so things were slowly getting in order.

Bellatrix Lestrange, that awful creature, would be sentenced at last. She would never hurt another person again. She would never murder another the way she’d murdered mum. That gave Ginny some semblance of peace.

The world wasn't right, but it was up to them to build a better one. One ruling at a time.

Hermione's hand squeezed hers, the solid, gentle support Ginny needed. Her dead brother's girl. A grown witch in full power now, and a capable leader.

Whatever the world held in store for them next, Ginny was ready for it.

*

Snape had settled into his chair. The small house at Spinner's End was draughty and small, after the grand halls of Hogwarts, but it's not as if he was welcome at the castle, not anymore. He was fortunate enough to have Harry's support, to keep him out of Azkaban, or worse.

He hadn't escaped trial, however. His had been one of the first to take place.

On that fated day in the courtroom, thirteen witches and warlocks had towered on their seats over him as he sat chained to a heavy iron chair in the middle of the cleared floor.

He had looked around and seen their faces, familiar and not. It was then, for the first time, he had learned that Minerva McGonagall was still alive.

His deeds had been laid out before them for the final judgement, it was the face of a former student that he remembered most. And then the countdown had begun, of so many proclaiming his guilt, how many was it up to now, five, six? There she had been, Eleos Carrow, the thirteenth member of his jury. Staring him in the face before she had readied to pronounce her final decision.

Snape remembered this one Carrow, and he remembered her younger sisters, Hestia and Flora. Ambitious lot, they all were, but she was an outcast, sorted Ravenclaw, she never had taken the mark and suffered greatly for it. He'd heard from Alecto she’d been sent to the Lestrange Manor early on before the Hogwarts battle and pronounced dead to the family.

 _She survived after all and she'll be the seventh to send me to my death,_ Snape had thought on that day which decided his fate. _I don't blame her. It'll all be over soon._

Eleos had pulled back her hood, a royal purple, as her long, prematurely grey hair had spilled across her wide shoulders, the same colour as her long silver scarf. "Severus Snape," she’d said. "I'd like to state for the record of the court that once the medicine you gave to Hermione Granger, saved my life. You have done only what a reasonable human could do in that situation and I do not consider myself indebted to you for this one act of human kindness. For all concerned, it was my cellmate, Ginny Weasley who truly made the difference. But now, I am to decide your fate. I hope, as I've always done in my life, to do this task justice…" She had tilted her head and gripped the podium with her large, square hands, too large for her smaller, skinny form. "With all the information I have at my disposal, I cannot decide. But someone can, someone who knows you better than I do. Your captive, Harry Potter, should be the one to make a decision and as I can see from his testimony, he already did. I merely echo his judgement in return..."

Snape stared at the scrap of fabric tied around his wrist and his fingers naturally drifted toward it as he shifted the knots over the patchwork of veins in his wrist. The fabric clung to the surface of his skin, and for just one second, at the right angle, had rendered his skin see-through enough to spot the sinew, the muscle, the veins.

It reminded him he was still alive.

"Hi," Harry said, walking through the door. "Takeaway for dinner. Curry OK?" He lifted the plastic bag with several containers.

Snape nodded. His gaze drifted toward the sunlight coming through the threshold, at Harry's youthful figure outlined in it, and a thought struck him. _I never thought I'd live to see this._

_Certainly never this._

Not Harry's presence. Not Harry's sunny smile when looking at him. Not Harry's easy acceptance of him as a whole, the good and the bad and the ugly.

 _Why me,_ he'd asked himself frequently. _Why is Harry still here, with me, at all?_

To that, he had no answer. Perhaps some things needed none. Perhaps all he could do to honour Harry's choice is live in the moment and enjoy it. Harry rushed past him into a small kitchen to set the curry down and rushed back, leaning forward and giving Snape a hasty, passionate kiss, as hasty and as passionate as many things Harry did in a whirlwind of frazzled activity. He energised this sleepy place as no other.

"Come on, let's go," Harry reached out for Snape's hand. "Ready?"

Snape rose and took his hand, Apparating them as promised beforehand. (Harry still struggled with Apparation these days.)

It was late in the evening as the two men in black walked down the cemetery path in Godric's Hollow, side by side and hand in hand.

The older stood back, allowing the younger to approach. The younger lifted his wand and, after a long minute of gathering his strength to try spell-casting, conjured up a wreath of flowers on the gravestone.

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death," the Potters' tombstone said, now covered by the fragrant wreath of white. Snape couldn't think of any better way to pay tribute to Lily's memory than the purest of magics by her son's hand.

He approached Harry afterwards and lowered his hand over Harry's shoulder.

Harry slid his new wand into a holster at his side and raised his right hand to cover Snape's. His fingers squeezed gently, closing over Snape's in a tender grasp as if Harry had finally caught the golden snitch.  
  


**Epilogue**

*

Ginny hadn't expected to see anyone by her brother's gravestone, but there he was, the last person she wanted to talk to, right on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

"Harry?" He looked good. Too good. He had no excuse to look this fine, not when it hadn't been a year since they… since Ginny had walked out of that room in St. Mungo's with her head held high.

"Gin," he cast her a sunny-eyed look. "Good evening!"

Ron's grave was marked now through the efforts of the Ministry, working with the Headmistress McGonagall. She supposed she owed it all to Severus Snape's initial effort to preserve the records of the unnamed markers on the margins of his personal book collection. All names, meticulously recorded. She couldn't bring herself to thank the man. Maybe one day she'd write a letter.

She set the flowers she brought with her over the gravestone. Wildflowers from the Burrow.

When she looked up again, Harry's face was sombre. "Ginny, wait," he called out.

"What?"

"I'm… I need to tell you something."  
  
"Well, do go on. I have places to be." _Like remembering my dead brother. In peace. Without my ex bothering me._

"I'm… terribly sorry. For everything. For the way you had to find out."

"For cheating on me with Snape and then singing praises to his kissing technique right in my face, is it? Can we stop pretending that didn't happen? Did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, someone you forgot was waiting for you, worried for you, was so happy to see you alive…? Oh, forget it."

"I…" He released a deep sigh. "That wasn't fair to you. Not in the slightest. I only now see how much."

"Damn it, Harry, I thought it was bloody obvious!" Ginny snapped and Harry cringed again. She covered her face in her hands, rubbed her temples and wished she didn't have to deal with this headache of a man. "Just tell me one thing, was it all worth it in the end?"

He ran his hand through his hair, looking suspiciously relieved as if he didn't have a regret in the world. It was infuriating for once instead of endearing. "I can't answer that. Not yet, anyway." That didn't sound like he was even the least bit sorry. "I guess I should let you know before the papers get a hold of it… um," he toed the ground with his boot, "I proposed. Last night."

Ginny's eyes widened. "To him? You're mental, I knew it."

Harry shrugged. "There's a good chance he still won't accept. I know that. But..." His smile showed it all, plain for the world to see. Harry Potter was a fool, a complete and utter fool in love. _He's gone and done it now,_ Ginny thought. _Always reaching for the impossible. What the hell is he going to do when that callous bastard goes and rips his heart out and stomps on it for good measure? Well, I'll kill him myself if that happens!_

Ginny pulled at a strand of her hair, exhausted at the mental exercise every word out of Harry's mouth had put her through. "What are you even thinking? You won't get a legally binding contract past the Ministry paper-pushers." _Even in these changing times._

"Yeah, about that," Harry stammered. "I thought maybe you could talk to some of your friends at the Ministry about it, and then maybe your friends at the paper. I've asked Hermione already, but I have a feeling it'll take a village."

"A village!" Ginny knew a hopeless cause when she saw one. She stared down pointedly at the headstone. _Oh Ron, he is_ your _friend!_ "It'd take an entire Dumbledore's Army marching on the Ministry to pull that off! You'll sooner turn fifty." She narrowed her eyes. "Snape would be what, at least a century old by then?"

"Ha bloody ha. You're part of the Army, you know. So let's start small. Just talk to them, please, that's all I ask," Harry intoned. "It's not just for us, you know that." Those green eyes stared at her pleadingly and she assured herself she was immune to that stare, by now.

"Hogwarts house-elves stand a better chance of unionising, and you know it."

Harry's eyebrows disappeared under his fringe. "So you spoke with Hermione lately as well," he stated the obvious.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Oh, Merlin's hairy ballsack." It felt only right to say it with Ron's name right there. "You can't just spring it on me! How am I supposed to explain it: my ex had a fling, so...? Do you love him, at least?"

Harry blinked. His expression was one of concern, but also of deep conviction. "Yes," he said firmly, as his green gaze met Ginny's and held it, as open and trusting as it ever was. "I do - did, since, well... I thought that was obvious. It's just an engagement. For now. We're taking it slow."

Ginny stepped back. She refused to be surprised, not by this. "If he turns you down, the heartless git had best be prepared for the biggest Bat-Bogey Hex of his life," she grumbled. "He'd deserve it."

Harry grinned, beaming like a boy who'd just been given the biggest Christmas present of all. He lunged and squeezed Ginny's shoulders before she had a chance to step back. "Thank you!" he cried out.

Ginny's mouth was pursed and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling at him. His smiles weren't _that_ infectious. "I'm not doing it for you, you silly sod," she countered. _Charlie would feed me to his dragons if I don't help with this. Contrary to what you might believe, you aren't the first Snape-smitten bloke I know, and you won't be the last._

Harry's face coloured pink. "Hey! You aren't?"

Ginny rolled her eyes and drove the point home, punching him in the shoulder. "It might be a surprise and all, but the world doesn't revolve around the great Harry Potter."

Harry's mouth was wide in a blissful smile. "Good," he said. "Glad to hear it. About time someone else had her turn."

Ginny huffed her amusement. _Flatterer._ "Tell me something I don't know," she said. "Now, I've got to get back to the Prophet before they send out a search party."

Harry smiled at her. "Thank you," he said.

"I haven't done anything. Yet."

"Thanks anyway." He nodded. "Well, I'd better let you have your moment alone."

Ginny said her goodbyes and he walked to the edge of the castle grounds and using a Portkey. That brief glimpse of him, a dark robed figure in the sun, had shown a young man, no longer a boy.

No longer a crush. No longer someone who had the power to hurt her.

It wasn't until after the weekend that she saw her friends, triumphantly throwing the latest edition of the Prophet opened at the proper page right at Ellie. "Look!" She even circled the relevant bits.

"The engagement is announced between Harry Potter, son of the late Lily and James Potter of Godric's Hollow, and Severus Snape, son of the late Eileen and Tobias Snape, of Cokeworth. Oh, is that all?" Ellie set the newspaper down. "Hardly a source of gossip, now the divorces on the other hand..."

 _'It's just an engagement. We're taking it slow.'_ Ginny thought of Harry's words and wondered if it's remarks like those, casual and unworried, that brought on a bigger wave of change into the world. _After all, a marriage isn't something to be rushed into._ Ginny lifted her glass in a toast. "Well, I am celebrating anyway. Today I am officially withholding my threat of the Bat-Bogey Hexes for the greasy git until a better occasion comes along."

Ellie arched her brow at Hermione. "Has she always been this odd?"

Hermione met her eye and shrugged. "If you ask me, a war hero can do as she pleases. I for one wouldn't be standing in her way." She looked down at her wand holster where the Elder Wand always resided. "Not even with this."

The war was over and it was up to Ginny to build the world she wanted to live in, one newspaper, one conversation at a time.

"Here's to Harry Potter, may he have a good life ahead," Ginny toasted, with her friends by her side. A pang of unreleased emotion had finally snapped, as she let go of her childhood fantasy for good. "Snape's one lucky bastard. I knew he'd say 'yes'. He'd be completely mad not to."

*

At Grimmauld Place, Snape toppled back against ornate pillows, raising a pile of dust to swirl over the bed. Harry curled up at his side, both men panting heavily.

Snape extended his hand to cast the cleaning charm over them both and then banished the dust as well. Knowing the Black family it probably held traces of Bubonic plague along with the ashes of Mrs Black's secret paramours.

"That was…"

"Wow!" Harry finished for him, sliding his arm over Snape's chest and burying his nose in Snape's shoulder. Snape ran his fingers through that unruly black mane and cancelled the spell, examining Harry's wrists carefully for any lingering effects. Suspension charms were not to be taken lightly.

He reached for the water glass by the bedside and offered it mutely to Harry. Harry gulped down half before pushing the glass back into Snape's hand.

"Good?"

"Uh-huh." Harry beamed at him, green eyes bright, and that meant things were very good indeed.

As close to perfect as they could be.

All was well.

* * *

 

_“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”_

_\- Oscar Wilde_

 

**Author's Note:**

> This work is part of the 2018 Harry Potter Cross Gen Fest. The author will be revealed on August 31.


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